AN ATTEMPT 



TO EXHIBIT THE 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY 



AS A 



CONSISTENT AND PRACTICAL SYSTEM. 



BY WILLIAM S. GRAYSON. 



■ " It is unworthy a reasonable being to spend the little time allotted to us, with- 
out some tendency, direct or oblique, towards the end of our existence. 1 ' 

Johnson. 

" And Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the Scrip- 
tures. 1 ' 



NEW YORK: 
D. APPLET02T & COMPANY, 200 BROADWAY. 
1853. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, 
By D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 
District of New York. 



Q 



pr 
p 

TO THE 

REV. WILLIAM WIHAf S, D. D. 

As a token of personal as well as of inherited attachment, ad- 
miration for his long life of eminent usefulness, and veneration 
for the exalted purity of his character, this volume is respect- 
fully and modestly dedicated by 

THE AUTHOR. 

Nbw Yobk, 1858. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER L 

The origin and design of the institution of Moral Evil, or its consis- 
tency with the benevolent attributes of the Divine Character ... 11 

CHAPTER, n. 

Human Depravity congruous with a scheme of Human Redemp- 
tion, upon the basis of Free Agency, or the Paralysis of the 
Religious Will, with the possibility of Salvation 38 

CHAPTER m. 

FAITH. 

Faith consistent with Works, or a diversity of Creeds with unity 
of the Faith 107 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE WILL. 

The Divine Foreordination reconciled with the Free Agency of 
. Man, or the System of Christianity, with the Laws of Moral 
Philosophy 218 



PREFACE. 



I should be indifferent to the warning of the voice of 
history, and blind to the peculiarities pertaining to the depart- 
ment of mind sought to be moved by the investigation into 
which I have entered in this volume, not to be alive to the 
peril of exposing my name to the obloquy of honest preju- 
dices, and the censure of misguided zeal. 

The most melancholy page in the book of history, is the 
extent to which Christian intolerance has been carried by the 
followers of the mildest and most forbearing of teachers. 
Zeal for the truth is productive of good ; but nothing is more 
hostile to the religion of the Saviour, than its unhappy mar- 
riage to the fell principle of intolerance. Zeal for the truth 
is the child of the Bible ; but intolerance is its counterfeit 
presentment. 

The problem of human redemption, delivered to man 
clothed in the symbols of human ideas, and addressed to 
the understandings of men, is singularly, yet I do not say 
unaccountably, apt, in the investigation of it, to engender the 
most unamiable feelings of the human heart. With regard 
to this mighty problem, the whole human family, as a broth- 
erhood, stand upon a common platform. As one of that 
number, I have herein ventured to lay my offering upon 
the common altar. The drama of human probation has 
had two acts — the Fall and the Restoration. 

The Restoration has its subdivisions. 

The common progenitors of the race had the unique and 
remarkable fortune of living under two probationary dis- 



s 



PREFACE. 



pensations: the one, peculiar to their primeval, sinless con- 
dition, and which terminated with the primal transgression ; 
and the other, a phase of the mediatorial, or Christian dis- 
pensation. 

It is important to remember, that these two acts of the 
drama of salvation are but parts of the one experiment of 
free moral agency with the same race. If Adam, after his 
fall, and if the posterity of Adam, are the same identical 
race originally made by the finger of God, and are unchanged 
in their original natures, are we not thereby brought to con- 
sider the reason that had their natures been changed, there 
would have been a new experiment of distinct races ? In the 
answer to this question we are to look for the solution of the 
other question, whether the ruin of Adam, in consequence 
of his fall, was an infirmity of his moral, or of his spiritual 
nature, to which the remedy of the Christian dispensation 
scheme was applied. 

These questions interest us all. 

In this volume I have acted uj)on the supposition that the 
true view of the ruin of the fall, would simply be a true view 
of human depravity. A true view of the nature and extent 
of the damage of the fall, would plainly, it would seem, dis- 
close just ideas of the nature and extent of the Christian 
remedy applied to the malady. Into the investigation of the 
moral malady produced by the sin of the fall, and into the 
character of the Christian remedy applied to that disease, I 
have entered very fully, and have been led to present some 
original views of the grave questions of human depravity and 
human redemption. 

Other doctrines equally original and equally interesting, 
connected with the subject of the freedom of the human will, 
with regard to the scheme of the restoration, that have grown 
out of the attempt to fix the " limits of reason in spiritual 
matters," are advanced and discussed under their appropriate 



PREFACE. 



9 



heads. As I have said, I lay the result of this investigation 
upon a common altar. I have not presumed to demolish 
without erecting also. 

The reader will find the substituted Theory, and the Scrip- 
ture and the reasons upon which it is founded for support, 
fully submitted to his closest examination and most rigid 
scrutiny. 

My object has been primarily to reconcile the philosophy 
of reason with the spiritual laws of the Gospel. 

I ask those, if there chance to be such, who may be dis- 
posed to examine it, to measure it by the word of God, and 
weigh it in the scales of reason, influenced by the pure love 
of the truth ; and if it should go down in such an examina- 
tion, it ought to go down, even though it should fall with 
" waxen wings" from the height of confident security, to 
which, in my judgment, it is elevated, to a ruin " without a 
wreck behind." 

All I desire is, in the language of Pollok, that " Provi- 
dence may be approved." 

THE AUTHOR. 

1* 



THE 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY, 



CHAPTER I. 

Showing- the Origin and Design of the Institution 
of Moral Evil, or its Consistency with the Be- 
nevolent Attribute of the Divine Character, 

The question of the origin of moral evil lias hitherto been 
the node of Theology. The doctrine of the existence of 
two independent self-existing principles, the one good, and 
the other evil, called the Manichsean doctrine, that prevailed 
so extensively in the East, adopted by the Gnostics, and by 
the majority of later philosophers and theologians, lies at 
the bottom, in prominency more or less distinct, of every 
system introduced to explain the origin of evil. It is the 
parent of the supposed distinction between causing or ap- 
pointing evil, and merely permitting it. The difficulty upon 
this subject has been, in reconciling the existence of moral 
evil with the attribute of infinite goodness in a first creating 
cause properly esteemed to be omnipotent. The error in the 
first instance originated in branding the institution under 
consideration as evil, when in truth it is not only a wise but 
a benevolent one. 

Infidels say, with a degree of plausibility which the Chris- 
tian world has hitherto been unable to dispel, that it is pre- 



12 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



posterous to suppose that there can be a God of perfect 
power and infinite purity upon the supposition of the exist- 
ence of the institution of moral evil. A malevolent institu- 
tion, prevailing in the creation of a being of infinite purity 
and infinite power, it is contended, with absolute conclusive- 
ness, is an absurdity upon its veiy face. 

Hence, they pressed the conclusion upon the Christian 
world, that it was necessary, either to circumscribe God's 
character, and to allow him to be less than infinite in power 
and goodness, or to divest evil of its evil character. 

The hypothesis of Leibnitz, borrowed from Plato, and still, 
strange as it may appear, very popular in the school of cer- 
tain orthodox theological writers, is not less dishonoring to 
God as a being of infinite purity and omnipotent power, than 
the existence of Arimanes in the Persian theology is an im- 
peachment of the power and goodness of Ormuzd. Arimanes, 
the principle of evil in the Persian theology, enjoys a divided 
empire with Ormuzd, the principle of good, and of course 
both the power and the goodness of Ormuzd are circum- 
scribed to the extent of the influence of the evil principle. 

The theory of Leibnitz assumes that matter is essentially 
imperfect and intractable, and that hence evil must necessa- 
rily attach to every material creation. If God be a God 
of infinite power, it is certainly in his capacity to correct 
the imperfection of matter. If he be a being of infinite 
goodness also, he could and would have avoided all connec- 
tion with a material so intractable as matter is assumed to 
be. Creation was optional. God was omnipotent. 

It is maintained by the advocates of this school, that God 
has given us the very best of all possible worlds. But if any 
thing be impossible for God, he is clearly not infinite in pow- 
er ; and, if creation was optional, he is not free from guilt, if 
the institution be other than benevolent. But the turning 
point in the theology we are now considering is, would not a 



ORIGIN OF MORAL EVIL. 



IS 



world without any evil be a better world than one with even 
the least ? If we were to imagine a being possessed of infinite 
goodness, under the guidance of infinite knowledge, about to 
construct a world, similar to our own in other respects, it 
would appear reasonable that he should prefer, in the first 
place, to create one without evil ; and, in the second place, 
that, possessed of those qualities, he would have the entire 
ability to exclude evil altogether. Yet the present theory of 
evil would regard both of those reasonable presumptions differ- 
ently. The difficulty is attempted to be solved by contending 
that God, as infinitely good and infinitely wise, was under a 
kind of necessity to choose the best of possible worlds. The 
theory is shockingly undevout. 

The fallacy of Archbishop King has been ably refuted by 
Lord Brougham, who, in his turn, has succeeded no better. 
The distinction between causing and permitting evil, is founded 
in the most ignoble conception of the character of God. 

We hold that it is the height of folly to suppose that there 
is any difference, under the administration of the creative 
energy of a being of infinite goodness, possessed of wisdom 
and power, between causing and permitting evil. If the in- 
stitution of evil be inconsistent with infinite goodness and 
power acting under the impulse of perfect knowledge, the fact, 
if admitted, at once impeaches the perfection of these several 
attributes of the divine character. Mr. Jonathan Edwards 
has embodied this repulsive doctrine in the language of agree- 
able imagery, and robed it in the sugar-coatings of a poetical 
comparison. He says that " there is a vast difference be- 
tween the suns being the cause of the lightsomeness and 
warmth of the atmosphere, and brightness of gold and dia- 
monds, by its presence and positive influence, and its being 
the occasion of darkness and frost in the night-time." If Mr. 
Edwards' Christianity would sanction a comparison between 
the exhibition of the original creative skill of an uncreated 



14 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



God of perfect attributes of power and wisdom, and the pow- 
er of a material orb acting in obedience to decreed laws, his 
philosophy may be very well satisfied with the theory drawn 
from the idolatrous illustration. The argument might be a 
very good one for the sun, but is a very lame and impotent one 
for a God of perfect, unoriginated, unlimited goodness, char- 
acterized by wisdom and power. It is foreign from our pur- 
pose to expose the fallacy of the many theories of the origin 
of moral evil, proceeding from philosophers of the infidel 
school, and from theologians of the philosophical school. 

In order to understand what moral evil is, and what was 
the end and object of its institution, we must know some- 
thing of the nature of God. But where are we to obtain 
that knowledge ? 

Theologians of the philosophical school have undertaken 
to inform us, that God is a being of infinite goodness, infinite 
knowledge, and infinite power. 

The revealed word of God is the source of all the knowl- 
edge we possess of the character of the infinite Being. It 
does not sanction this philosophy ; upon the contrary, it de- 
clares that " God is Love." Christian philosophers have no 
warrant to improve upon this theology. They have no war- 
rant to violate the law of logical language, and to disregard 
the positively revealed exposition of the essential element of 
God's character and essence, in order to maintain the absurdi- 
ty of three infinite qualities 'or elements of character. If God 
be Love, then the characteristics of love are the characteris- 
tics of God, and vice verm. If God be infinite, essential 
Love, he can be infinitely essential nothing else. One infinite 
quality excludes any other infinite quality, by the very force 
of the term. If God be infinite Love, then the attributes of 
God are the attributes of infinite Love, and vice versa. Hence 
we say, that infinite Love includes the attributes of perfect 
wisdom and power, simply as necessarily implied conse- 



ORIGIN OF MORAL EVIL. 



15 



quenees. If God be love, lie must be infinite Love necessarily, 
if he be infinite God ; and, in that case, perfect knowledge and 
perfect power are qualities necessary to constitute infinite love. 
That love must be clearly less than infinite, that lacks either 
perfect knowledge or perfect power. We cannot conclude oth- 
erwise. What other than an absurd idea can we form of an 
element of character claimed to be infinite, that is deficient in 
knowledge — the knowledge necessary, for example, to exer- 
cise this infinite quality to the best advantage ; or in power, 
such, for example, as the necessary power to carry into execu- 
tion the purposes of this infinite quality to the proper extent 
and at the proper time ? That goodness is clearly not infi- 
nite, is clearly less than infinite, clearly circumscribed ; neither 
is it essential, that is, minus the knowledge necessary to exer- 
cise the goodness claimed to be infinite to the best advantage, 
or lacking in the power required in effecting the ends and 
designs of that good, or God, supposed to be infinite. Hence, 
it is manifestly unphilosophical to say. that God is a being of 
infinite love, and also of infinite power and wisdom. The 
Bible, in this respect, also the better philosophy, gives to us 
the true theology in the pregnant declaration, that " God is 
Love." Another weighty conclusion is likewise deducible 
from the scriptural declaration that God is Love ; and that is, 
that God is goodness essentially. "We cannot over-estimate 
the important relative consequences of this interesting deduc- 
tion. If the declaration of the Scriptures, that God is Love, 
be admitted to its full extent, it follows that he is essentially 
love, and hence eveiy exhibition of that love that constitutes 
the character of God, must be an emanation from God, and 
must constitute a portion of God. If God be love, he is love 
in its original and underived character. The love of God's 
character being unoriginated, every exhibition of such love 
must be a derived principle of action. The love of God's 
character being essential and unoriginated, must necessarily 



16 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



be disinterested ; because an interested love is a mixed, or a 
corrupted love. God's love being essential, is pure and un- 
selfish ; or, in other words, is unmixed or uncorrupted, because 
it is essential. Whoever, therefore, exhibits an unmixed or 
an uncorrupted love, exhibits a derived element of God. 

All the Calvinistic writers, from Calvin to Chalmers, con- 
cur in the truth of the doctrine, that God is the cause and 
only cause of all things. The first of these writers says, the 
" will of God is the necessity of things." There seems to be 
no doctrine more clearly taught in revelation than that God 
is the only cause. Wherever, therefore, we see an effect, we 
are, in virtue of the doctrine, to recognize in it either the 
direct or remote activity of the one cause. If the other doc- 
trine be equally true, then the cause of all things is Love. 
Hence, love is the active, moving, causing principle in crea- 
tion. God dwells in creation, in the form of infinite love ; 
love is the cause of all action. Now, love being the cause of 
action, may, in a created being, be directed to good or evil 
purposes. Love of evil in a created being causes evil actions, 
and love of good causes good actions. This brings into view 
the momentous distinction between a motive and a reason. 
Along with the doctrine of the existence of one first cause, 
comes the other necessary resultant doctrine of the derived or 
imparted cause of action observed in created spiritual, human, 
animal, and mechanical powers. 

Hence there can be no such element in God's character as 
justice, understood as implying, " mum cuique" the render- 
ing to others what is their due, or being governed by laws or 
principles of rectitude. Such an idea greatly degrades and 
diminishes the true character of God. A just being is a lim- 
ited being. He is supposed to act from considerations or re- 
flections, or from motives or antecedent laws. Whatever 
being acts from motives must be a created, a limited being. 
If God acts from motives, he is, and must unquestionably be, 



ORIGIN OF MORAL EVIL. 



1 7 



a created God. The God that made the motives must be the 
greater God. It is illogical and inconsistent to hold that God 
acts from considerations of moral rectitude, when he is him- 
self the unoriginated, essential, and infinite motive of love. 
God is the only motive, the only cause, the only original first 
vital energy ; hence there can be no antecedent vital energy. 
He cannot, consistently with this description of his character, 
act from a cause or a motive antecedent ; for the cause or 
motive of his acting would be the superior cause or motive. 
Now, justice is a principle very much inferior to that of infi- 
nite love ; nor could love be infinite that lacked the necessity 
of motives of action. The idea of justice founded upon any 
supposed subsisting rights of dependent existences is, in terms, 
antagonistical to the idea of infinite love, characterized by 
wisdom and power only limited and circumscribed by the one 
original, first-causing, infinite principle of love, that is, God 
himself. God being infinite love, acts as infinite love ; is love 
infinite in practical energy, manifested in created works or 
acts. He is love, the cause of motion, without beginning or 
end, characterized by eternity, and by infinite perfection with- 
in himself. Hence, with him there is neither past nor future, 
because these are terms that limit the infinity of his perfec- 
tion. 

Entertaining these views, we feel called upon to exhibit the 
fearful results of moral probation, the eternal loss of a human 
soul, as entirely consistent with infinite love. This we feel 
prepared to do upon scriptural and philosophical grounds. 

If God be love essentially, every institution emanating 
from him must necessarily be disinterested — must be purely 
benevolent — must be unmixed or uncorrupted ; because, be- 
ing essential love, operating as the causing principle, every 
act must be essentially holy. An essential quality negatives 
the possibility of tne essential quality of every thing else. 
If any thing else be essential, God's character of love cannot 



18 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



be essential, because that other essential thing would neces- 
sarily modify or abridge the infinite quality of his character. 
There cannot be two essential things. Hence, if God be es- 
sential love, every thing else must be dependent or originated 
states or existences, or motives of action. There cannot be 
two distinct or independent existences of diverse character. 
To be less than essential is to be a subordinate thing. Hence, 
the knowledge and power of God being characteristics or 
qualities of an essential or infinite (for they imply the same 
meaning in this connection) quality or cause, must certainly 
be subordinate to the one only uncircumscribed quality, or 
imlimited essential ingredient. 

We must not lose sight of the fact that there is but one 
God, although there are three manifestations of the principle. 
Hence the characteristics of God cannot be subordinate Gods. 
If God be love, wisdom and power must be qualities of love : 
then wisdom and power cannot be first causes. If there be 
but one first cause indicating the triune God, we must cer- 
tainly run back through qualities or characteristics of the 
first cause in order to find the first cause. This first cause 
must be susceptible of being described by its qualities. He 
must have certain powers in order to constitute it a first 
cause. But the first cause and the certain powers or qualities 
of the first cause are as distinct as a man and his material 
body or house of habitation. Xow if we make knowledge 
infinite, it must be a cause. If we make power infinite it 
must be a cause. Then instead of one cause, we have three 
distinct and dissimilar causes. This makes three distinct and 
dissimilar Gods. Knowledge cannot be an infinite quality if 
it is deficient in the important ingredient of causing. It 
would be a mere lifeless inactive abstraction. The same 
may be said of power. If we make Power infinite, we make 
a God of it. If power be infinite, there can be no other infi- 
nite God, for one infinite God makes all other beings finite 



OKIG-IX OF MORAL EVIL. 



19 



necessarily. Hence we must consider knowledge and power 
as the perfect attributes of God, lie being infinite love, and as 
subordinate to the infinite quality. Hence it is impossible 
for God to do an unloving thing, because he has neither the 
power nor the knowledge. This follows from the fact that 
God's knowledge and his power are qualities of love, and not 
independent qualities. God does not act by power, nor think 
by knowledge, but he is possessed of those qualities as his 
characteristics ; that is to say, infinite love comprises the 
proper amount and proper quality of knowledge and power 
to make up the character of infinite love ; but then it is the 
infinite love that is the causing principle, and hence would be 
incompetent either in power or knowledge to do violence to 
the supreme infinite, essential, and predominant causing prin- 
ciple of love. 

Hence moral evil is a dependent or originated quality, 
because it is a distinct thing from the essential quality of 
God or of uncircumscribed love. It is hence a created thing. 
Now God being the Creator, he must have created moral 
evil, and moral evil must be purely a benevolent institution. 

It is much easier to arrive at these general conclusions 
than philosophically to show the benevolent end and aim of 
the institution of moral evil. 

If we are enabled to establish this latter proposition, in 
regard to which we have no apprehensions whatever, the 
term moral evil will have to be rebaptized. It will have to 
be called the law or divine institution of moral evil. 

TTe say then God is infinite essential love. TTe say that 
infinite essential love comprehends perfect knowledge and 
perfect power. 

With regard to the proposition that " God is love," Mr. Paley's 
argument, drawn from the voice of natural religion, has never 
been satisfactorily met and answered, and never will be. " Con- 
trivance proves design," says he, " and the predominant ten- 



20 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



dency of the contrivance indicates the disposition of the 
designer. The world abounds in contrivances, and all the 
contrivances of which we have any acquaintance are directed 
to benevolent purposes. Evil no doubt exists, but is never, 
that we can perceive, the object of contrivance." We are to 
understand by this latter remark that evil for the sake of evil 
is never the object of contrivance, but we expect to show that 
the existence of evil has a benevolent design. 

Having affirmed upon Scriptural authority that God is 
essential love, we now affirm that the necessary predominant 
desire of essential love is to give and receive love. Hence 
when God made man, he was moved thereto by the predom- 
inant desire of his essential character. Of course, so far it is 
only an inference that the predominant desire of infinite love 
is to give and receive love, since we can only know it by rev- 
elation. But upon this point the Scriptures are not silent. 
Here and in this connection we proceed with the investiga- 
tion into the origin of moral evil by taking it for granted 
that God in making man was moved thereto by the desire to 
give and receive love. Hence man became a free agent, by 
which we mean that he was placed in circumstances that 
permitted him voluntarily either to give his love to God or 
not. Upon the supposition that in creating man God was 
moved thereto by the desire to give and receive voluntary 
love, moral evil became a necessary institution in order to the 
experiment of free moral agency, because only from a free 
agent could God receive love not the offspring of a prior 
decree. We could not have the experiment of free moral 
agency without the institution of moral evil. We are unable 
to perceive how free moral agency could otherwise be exhib- 
ited. Love, to be love, must be voluntary. A choice between 
good and evil becomes necessary in order to evince the vol- 
untary character of love, and to vindicate it from the charge 
of being the effect of a fixed physical law or necessity. If 



ORIGIN OF MORAL EYIL. 



21 



God desired voluntary love from his creatures, it became 
necessary for him to furnish the opportunity of choice. Had 
only good been instituted, the human family would have 
been good from a fixed law, precisely as trees, and flowers, 
and rivulets, and plants, and natural objects of every class 
are good from fixed laws. How could they, in the contin- 
gency of good being alone instituted, have made any other 
choice than the choice of God ? Hence goodness would have 
been a fixed effect, like the fixed effects of the laws of nature, 
and would not have been voluntary but mechanical. In this 
event we should have had no experiment of voluntary moral 
agency. Hence voluntary agency consists in the preference 
of good over evil. Hence it is nothing more than the giving 
a free love to God, when it was in man's power to have with- 
held this free love by bestowing it upon things constituted 
with the view that we might make this free choice. The 
commendable exercise of the freedom of moral agency is 
nothing more than the exercise of the supreme voluntary 
love of God, rather than the opposite supreme voluntary love 
of prohibited indulgences. 

In a finite beino\ a beino* circumscribed in his action, the 
law of supreme voluntary love is testified in the voluntary 
preference or rejection of commands of the supreme law-giver. 
This lets us at once into an acquaintance with good and evil. 
There is nothing essentially good but the Supreme Being, 
and nothing essentially evil, because it is impossible there can 
be two distinct essential existences. Hence probationary 
good is what God has commanded, and is good because he 
is infinite Love ; and evil is what he has prohibited, and 
because he has prohibited it. 

There is nothing essentially good but God. The experi- 
ment made with Adam in the first instance was the experi- 
ment of free choice, or of free love in a probationary trial in 
which there was instituted but one statute of moral evil. 



22 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



That was the prohibition of a certain fruit. This was as 
proper a test of free supreme love of God, or the opposite of 
free supreme love of evil, as the one now going on with his 
race under the Christian dispensation with respect to the 
moral law and Christian prohibitions. So long as Adam 
was influenced by the motive of supreme voluntary love of 
God, it was necessarily impossible for him to be a sinner. 
So long as love of God was supreme, a subordinate love in 
opposition to this supreme love, sufficient to control this' 
existing supremacy, would clearly have been an impossibility. 
"When Adam preferred to eat of the forbidden fruit, what 
was it but a clear declaration and acknowledgment that he 
had ceased to love God with a supreme voluntary love, and 
had fixed his choice upon the forbidden fruit — forbidden in 
order to give him this very opportunity, and his act was the 
proof that he loved the fruit supremely and God secondarily ? 
This is the test of free agency. 

It is here necessary to notice the distinction between sin 
and evil. 

Sin is the transgression of the law, or evil. 

Evil is the prohibited institute. Sin is the act of man — 
evil the institution of God. God cannot sin, for the reason, 
among others, that being the Supreme Being, he cannot have 
a prohibition placed upon his action. Sin would never have 
entered into the world had Adam been governed by the 
motive of supreme voluntary love of God. When God made 
man, and endued him with capacity to love him supremely, 
with a voluntary affection, he was placed in a trial state in 
order to test this voluntary capacity, and a command or pro- 
hibition was placed upon him, or, in other words, moral evil 
was instituted ; and the very same experiment is now con- 
tinued with Adam's children, only under a different system 
of prohibitory laws, and a different mode of intercourse with 
God. Moral evil is then an institution of God, and consists 



ORIGIN" OF MORAL EVIL. 



28 



in certain commands revealed for the purpose of continuing 
the original experiment of free supreme love of God or its 
opposite. 

We must not confound certain unhappy effects and conse- 
quences that were entailed upon the human family because 
of the failure in their first probationary estate in the persons 
of their federal representatives with evil. These distressing 
and unhappy consequences still continue to act oppressively 
upon mankind, but their existence in respect to the goodness 
of God are always to be considered in connection with the 
superior advantages of the new salvation dispensation gratui- 
tously bestowed upon their posterity. 

We propose to illustrate the view we have presented of the 
character and purpose of moral evil by a reference to a few 
instances of divine prohibitory enactments. And in thus 
doing this, we intend to take those instances most likely to 
militate against the soundness of our views. 

Let us take the evil of drunkenness. — The moral evil of 
drunkenness consists in the prohibition against the intemper- 
ate use of alcoholic spirits. The sin of drunkenness consists 
in the violation of the prohibition. Aside from the prohibi- 
tion, there would be no more moral evil in it, or sin in its use, 
than in the use of so much sea-water : — as a proof of which, 
God could divest alcoholic spirit of the principle of inebria- 
tion. The non-essential character of moral evil is plainly 
illustrated by the example of the evil of drunkenness. This 
evil might readily be banished from the creation of God in 
many ways ; as for example, by imparting to alcohol the 
qualities of sea-water ; or, by changing the physical organiza- 
tion of man, so that alcohol would have the same effect upon 
it that sea-water has. If the moral evil of drunkenness did 
not consist in the divine prohibition, and not in the conse- 
quences of the intemperate use of alcoholic spirits, aside from 
the prohibition, and not in the abstract acts, it would follow, 



24 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



that if God were to impart to alcohol the qualities of sea- 
water, and remove the prohibition, the evil would still con- 
tinue ; and in that event, it would be moral evil to use sea- 
water, or what might be called sea-water, intemperatelv. 

We are to distinguish between the consequences of any 
given action and the moral evil of that action. There are 
certain -consequences growing out of the prohibited use of 
alcoholic spirits that are very apt to attract the attention, and 
distract it from that true vie~w of moral evil so intimately 
associated with the experiment of moral agency. Actions 
are not evil because they are attended with unhappy conse- 
quences : the converse of the imposition is much the sound- 
est theology. It is more proper to say, that unhappy conse- 
quences attend certain actions, because those actions are evil. 
The unhappy consequences attending certain actions may 
very properly enter into the estimate of the sin of the actor, 
but cannot form any part of the moral evil of the action. It 
may be, and doubtless is, more sinful in an actor to commit 
an action attended with more unhappy consequences, than in 
one who performs an action attended with fewer unhappy con- 
sequences. It may be more sinful, for example, to commit 
murder, than to be "slothful in business." This is so, be- 
cause sin bears relation to the sinner, while moral evil bears 
relation to God. It is certainly not in the power of a mere 
human actor to increase or diminish the evil of any action, 
because evil is a divine institution. Kone but a God, estab- 
lishing a probationary trial of moral agency, can institute 
moral evil. The consequences of an action are the laws of 
God. Human beings cannot create unhappy consequences, 
and say that they shall attach to a certain action. They 
cannot, for example, create such unhappy consequences as 
flow from drunkenness, and attach them to stealing. These 
are the results of the creative skill of God ; hence they can- 
not enter into the character of the moral evil, because moral 



ORIGIN OF MORAL EVIL. 



25 



evil is the divine prohibition, and the unhappy consequences of 
an action are not a divine prohibition. They are quite the 
opposite, — they are divine laws. God is the cause of all 
effects. 

In the institution of moral evil, God has attached certain 
unhappy consequences to certain actions, that he has withheld 
from other actions, in instances where both actions are moral- 
ly evil. For example, he has attached consequences to drunk- 
enness that do not belong to swearing, yet there is no distinc- 
tion between the moral evil of the two prohibitions, although 
there is a distinction between the sin of the two violations. 
They are both and alike moral evil, in virtue of the divine 
'prohibition. 

The object, in the institution of different effects of different 
actions, is very plainly observable when we take into view 
the character and design of probation. If all actions had 
the same consequences, then all sinners would be equally 
sinners. Xo one sinner could manifest a deeper criminality, 
or farther departure from God, than another, because all 
actions would be alike. There could be no degrees in moral 
perversion. Whereas, under the present regulation, the mur- 
derer is a more sinful being than the swearer. A man may 
be just sinful enough to swear but not to commit adultery. 
But there is just as much moral evil in swearing as there is 
in murder. The evil lies in the prohibition ; and the pro- 
hibition originates in the same authority. The institution 
of different effects of actions has for its design, to test tree 
agency, in order to see how far voluntary agency will depart 
from Good. Actions that have the very worst consequen- 
ces, when performed by a sinner, indicate the extreme length 
to which human perversion can go in this life. Hence it is 
also plain that God has attached the worst consequences to 
those actions which he intends men shall less frequently com- 
mit. He has regarded the safety of man along with the design 



26 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



of the institution of moral evil. For man to commit murder, 
there must be very great moral perversion. It does not 
require so great moral perversion to swear. But suppose the 
swearer w T ould also murder as readily as he would swear, 
very great injury would accrue to the race. We behold 
God's benevolence in this twofold aspect. Now sin is the 
violation of the prohibition, and the malignity of sin is tested 
by the different effects of different actions. 

A young sinner will swear with a trembling heart ; an old 
sinner, who has wandered farthest from God, will imbue his 
hands in his brothers blood with less hesitancy, or with a 
less trembling of heart than attends the maiden efforts of the 
beardless swearer in his young novitiate. 

Man is nowhere prohibited from exhibiting the conse- 
quences of the prohibited actions. Whoever uses alcoholic 
spirits intemperately sins, but the evil of the prohibition is 
not enhanced by subsequent natural consequences. There 
can be no evil in the consequences of an action, if the cause 
of consequences be a holy cause. It cannot be denied that 
God is the cause of the consequences of all actions, and of 
course has placed no prohibition over them. Nothing is evil 
that is not prohibited. He has forbidden certain actions 
having certain fixed natural consequences, and hence the 
moral evil lies in the divine prohibition. Hence, in respect to 
moral evil, there is as much in eating an apple as in murder, 
both being prohibited. But the sin of the two acts may be 
different, since murder indicates a deeper depravity than the 
violation of a statute attended with less unhappy conse- 
quences. 

It is important to distinguish between evil and sin — they 
are not convertible terms. Evil is not sin, nor is sin evil. 
If evil were sin, then God would be the author of sin. If sin 
were evil, then man would no longer be a free agent. 

Upon the hypothesis of the existence of but one essential 



ORIGIN OF MORAL EVIL. 



27 



infinite causing principle, there can be no such thing as a 
natural right. All right, as well as all good, is traceable to 
the will, revealed or otherwise, of the first cause. 

Many persons, who have not thoroughly examined this 
subject, are disposed to consider the experiment of moral 
agency with Adam in connection with a prohibition to avoid 
the fruit of a particular tree, in the garden of Paradise, as 
manifesting in God an unwise disproportion between the 
momentous consequences of the action and the seeming 
harmlessness of it, abstractly considered. There are no bad 
consequences in our ordinary life attending the eating of the 
fruit of a beautiful tree. Eating an apple seems to be a very 
innocent action. Hence many persons are disposed to ques- 
tion the truth of the Scriptural narrative detailing the fearful 
consequences of an action seemingly harmless. But we should 
reflect that so far as moral evil is concerned there can be 
no difference in the evil of actions prohibited by God, when 
the evil consists in the prohibition ; but this is not saying that 
there are not degrees of moral perversion. Hence the sin of 
eating an apple prohibited by God is just as essentially 
sinful, and as fatal to the experiment of voluntary moral 
agency, as murder, or sacrilege, or any other thing else pro- 
hibited by God, when the evil of each locates in the divine 
prohibition, and not in the consequences of the action, or in 
the action itself. If the command of God be the measure, as 
well as the source of the moral evil of an action, neither the 
action itself, nor the guilt of the actor, nor the effects of the 
action can also be other and distinct measures and sources of 
evil. 

To those actions which it is the evident purpose of God 
that his creatures shall less frequently commit, in the proba- 
tionary trial with respect to the institution of moral evil, he 
has appended the most unhappy consequences. This is evi- 
dently a humane, a benevolent regulation. Suppose, upon the 



28 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



contrary, he had attached to the evil of adultery the conse- 
quences that now appear to flow from taking the name of 
the Lord in vain ; in that event, then, would it not follow 
that in the ungodly world, adultery would be the rule and 
chastity the exception ? Whereas now it is just the reverse. 
The same reasoning applies to murder, slavery, perjury, &c. 
Hence we conclude that the unhappy consequences of certain 
actions are the benevolent enactments of the Creator to make 
the choice less frequent, and to show man the depravity of 
his heart. This same reasoning is applicable to good ac- 
tions. The .goodness of an action exists wholly in the divine 
command : the goodness of the actor in the motives that 
influence him, and the relative goodness of the actor in the 
circumstances of the action. Abstractly considered, there is 
no goodness in any human action, however it may be attended 
with seemingly beneficial results. To predicate of a human 
act the element of goodness, as disconnected from the com- 
mand of God, would be equivalent to affirming that there 
was an original and underivative goodness in man, indepen- 
dent of the underived goodness of God. Hence an action 
is not good in virtue of any supposed essential goodness in it, 
but only because of the commandment or purpose of God. 
God is the only unoriginated source of the quality of good- 
ness, and the only causer of actions, though not of choice. 

The evil of murder is only evil because God has prohibited 
it. The consequences are God's consequences, not man's. 
This may shock the prejudices of education, but it is never- 
theless a Scriptural truth. If we bear in mind the purpose 
of creation, and couple it with the end and office of the insti- 
tution of moral evil, we will have no difficulty in yielding- 
assent to the seemingly paradoxical proposition. Aside from 
the institution of murder, as a moral evil, by the Almighty, 
there could possibly be no more evil in it, notwithstanding 
its consequences, than in taking unintelligent animal life, foi 



ORIGIN OF MORAL EVIL 



29 



the reason that the Almighty being the only being capable of 
arranging the material of an experiment of free agency, in view 
of instituted good and evil, withheld the prohibitory enactment. 
Murder is instituted as a moral evil, along with other enact- 
ments, in order that trial might be thereby made of a volun- 
tary principle in human nature. God has attached to mur- 
der, we are to observe, in addition to the prohibition, certain 
consequences of such a character, that it requires, in the 
perpetrator, a state of greater moral obliquity — a farther 
descent in the career of crime — in order to commit murder, 
than is required to violate any other specification of evil 
in the decalogue. 

Although there is no distinction in respect to the moral 
evil of the various prohibitions of God, all of them standing 
upon the same equal bases of the divine command, having 
the same benevolent end in view ; still, it is necessary to rec- 
ognize the distinction that prevails in the bosom of the vio- 
lator, between the violations of the different commands. The 
difference in the consequences resulting from the violation of 
the different commands, furnishes an index by which the 
degrees of moral departure from the supreme love of God, 
may be noted. 

For example, the perpetrator of murder, in consequence 
of the more grievous results and consequences accompanying 
it, indicates a more fearful departure from the supreme love 
of God, required in a successful issue of a trial of free agency, 
than would be exhibited by him who thinks more highly of 
himself " than he ought to think." 

In every aspect in which the institution of moral evil is con- 
sidered, it is to be borne in mind, that no other being than 
the Supreme Being, the original lawgiver, could make moral 
evil out of a human action, for the plain reason that none 
other can give the supreme command. The ability to give 
the supreme or ultimate command as a rule of conduct, or as 



30 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



the criterion of virtue, is necessary, in order to enable the 
Creator to institute moral evil. 

No proposition can be more logically maintained, than 
that God, acting under original impulses of essential good- 
ness, guided by perfect wisdom, must have constituted in the 
persons who were the offspring of his creative energy, per- 
sons or objects of his disinterested benevolence. He must 
have loved what he created, and hence it would follow, from 
the relation subsisting between the Creator and his creature, 
that he would be in manifest antagonism to any premeditated 
injury in thought or deed to this object ; and this relation 
would justify the inference, that any premeditated injury to 
this object of his affection, and offspring of his skill, would be 
a reflex injury offered to himself in his created image, and 
hence evil. But this would be merely a philosophical infer- 
ence. 

Then, in the absence of any revealed prohibition against 
homicide, it might yet be inferred as a matter of probable 
logic, that it would be moral evil to destroy human life, inas- 
much as it would indicate the absence in the injurer of that 
supreme love of God demanded by the relation of Creator 
and creature. All sin rests upon the same original basis ; 
proximately, upon the basis of the prohibition, but originally 
upon the absence of that preference of the good over the 
evil, demanded in the trial of free moral agency. 

Independent of the express declarations of God's revealed law, 
it might yet, we insist, be inferred upon the strength of mere 
human reason, that the predominant intent of a Creator, under 
the control of purposes of unmixed benevolence, in the crea- 
tion of a free moral creature, furnished with an occasion to 
test his freedom in a world of material objects constructed for 
that express purpose, would be the submission of the volun- 
tary principle in the creature to the predominant, benevolent 
purpose of the Creator. This w^ould be sufficient of itself to 



ORIGIN OF MORAL EVIL, 



31 



furnish the germ of the knowledge of good and evil. We are 
to regard sin, then, as nothing more than the exhibition in 
man of the supreme love of something else : some prohibition 
other than the supreme love of the Creator. Good, or more 
properly a good action, is nothing more than the exhibition 
in man, or the declaration by man of the supreme love of the 
Creator, — supreme love implying obedience to his commands 
as the outward active declaration of the internal principle. 

Recurring again to the instance of the moral evil of drunk- 
enness, a little reflection will show us the non-essential char- 
acter of the institution of moral evil. This reflection will 
show us that the legal sanctions of certain actions by civil 
authority imparts the divine criminality. The divine law 
has imparted a sanction to legal enactments of society to such 
an extent, that an action intrinsically harmless is made to 
partake of the nature of moral evil by civil law. This is true 
of smuggling, and the sale of intoxicating drinks, and many 
other statutory enactments. Smuggling and the sale of intox- 
icating drinks, and other instances of like character, are in 
the eye of the divine law not classed with moral evils ; but so 
soon as they are prohibited by the legal tribunals of civil 
government, they then range with the list of moral evils, be- 
cause obedience to the constituted authorities of the land, act- 
ing within their proper limits, is required in the divine law : 
hence it is a sin to violate them. Hence we may expect the 
time to come, when the legal enactments in opposition to the 
divine enactments will be pronounced by legal tribunals to 
be ipso facto void, as is now done with legislative enactments 
in opposition to the constitutional law. It is impossible for 
the mind to grasp in its view the momentous consequences 
of this doctrine upon the destiny of men, as a band of com- 
mon brethren. 

It would require volumes to point them out. 

If the whole of the divine law can resolve itself into the 



32 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



comprehensive principle of supreme love of God, why cannot 
the whole of human law resolve itself into the comprehensive 
principle of unmixed love of man ? 

The optimism of Leibnitz, and of the disciples of his school 7 
founded upon the idea that this is the best of all possible 
worlds, originates in a radical, and indeed infidel misconcep- 
tion of the character and of the purpose of Deity in its creation. 

If our philosophy be grounded upon the disclosures of rev- 
elation, we at once discard the notion, and affirm in opposi- 
tion to it, that the supposition of the existence of such a 
purpose to create the best of all possible worlds, is at war 
with the greater design of a scheme of moral probation. A 
trial state necessarily presupposes inconveniences, pain, u all 
the ills that flesh is heir to," the institution of moral evil, to- 
gether with disease and death at the close, — these are the life 
of probation. A trial-world is not to be confounded with a 
fruition-world. The theory of Leibnitz would suit a world 
of reward, after the trial state had been passed. Sin, upon 
the part of probationers, is the false counterfeit that proves 
the value of the true coin. The possibility of sinning proves 
the ability of the sinner to render a free love and obedience. 
Take away the possibility of sin or moral evil, and thereby is 
removed the merit of a voluntary obedience, and man is re- 
duced to a condition with stocks and stones. 

We are unable to perceive how infidelity can resist the 
force of the argument in favor of the divinity of the Scriptures, 
drawn from the existence of moral evil in a world so physi- 
cally beautiful. The existence of evil can only be explained 
satisfactorily upon the supposition of a moral probation, or a 
malevolent first cause. If this world be a trial-world, con- 
structed for that purpose by the Almighty, it is not to be 
presumed that he would, after such a decided move in the 
moral machinery of probation, fail to disclose the laws of that 
probation. This would be arguing too great simplicity in 



ORIGIN OF MORAL EVIL. 



33 



the Supreme Creator. Hence the only question for an intel- 
ligent infidel to ask upon the subject is, which system of pro- 
bationary laws is the best ! The best must be the divine sys- 
tem. The only other alternative is a malevolent God. The 
system of Jesus Christ would not suffer in this investigation : 
hence it would follow, that the Christian system must be the 
divine system. This is the only rational answer, if this be a 
divine probationary existence. 

Supreme love of God is all that is required of a moral 
probationer, manifested in obedience to the laws of Jesus 
Christ, in order to a full compliance with every requisition 
of the code. One of the writers of this code says, that 
" love is the fulfilling of the law." If a man fails to love 
God supremely, it is the result of voluntary counter-pref- 
erence, and he chooses as a consequence what God has pro- 
hibited, and thereby constituted as moral evil in order to 
enable him to make this choice ; and such counter-preference 
is the proof that the love of God is secondary and subordi- 
nate. Supreme love of God being the ruling motive in the 
creature, includes, as a necessary consequence, unmixed love 
of his fellow-creature, because his fellow-creature is the object 
of the love of God. The man who steals, or who commits 
murder, or violates any of the maxims of the decalogue, vio- 
lates but one original law — the law of supreme love of God. 
The man who steals or murders, thereby acknowledges that 
he does not voluntarily love God with a supreme affection ; 
for had he done so, he would have loved man with an un- 
mixed affection, since man is the object of the love of God, 
and is protected by his commands, — he, therefore, would have 
neither taken his property, nor his life. 

This end of creation is probation. God's prohibitions, or 
moral evil, follows and completes the work. God could, at 
creation, have avoided the possibility of death by human 
hands, for example, by constituting man's nature with an eye 

2* 



34 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



to that purpose. Had murder been impossible, the moral 
evil of murder would have been avoided. But what would 
have been the consequence? Probation would have been 
narrowed to that extent. Nothing could have been easier 
than for God to create man so as to have rendered it impos- 
sible for him to violate any of the commands of the deca- 
logue. This could readily have been done by a change of 
his physical organization. But the result would have been 
the cessation of moral agency. Suppose he had so created man 
that he could have violated but one of the statutes of moral 
evil. Probation would have been restricted to obedience or 
disobedience of that statute. Then there would have been 
no variety in life, and neither degrees in goodness, nor degrees 
in perversion, and all good men would be equally good, and 
all bad men equally bad. But instead of doing this, God 
saw proper to enlarge the sphere of probation by so consti- 
tuting the physical and moral organization of his creature as 
to allow of the enlargement of the statute of moral evil. 
Thus is human agency enlarged and diversified. This 
enlargement has a twofold benevolent end. It allows man, 
if he chooses, to descend in crime, and to exhibit his descent 
by the crime of murder. "When a man commits murder, he 
declares by that act how far he has gone from the love or 
choice of God. The other benevolent end of murder is that 
it allows the Christian to become a martyr, thereby to. test, 
or to declare the strength of his devotion to God. Thus 
by moral evil is the basis of moral probation greatly enlarged. 
What we mean by the non-essential nature of moral evil is. 
that it is an institution of God having a temporal existence, 
and terminating with time. Its object is merely to try 
human virtue upon this temporary .theatre of action. 

First came creation, having probation in view, then came 
the prohibitions, and then came the trial. Death terminates 
the trial, and the tried party escapes forever from moral 



ORIGIN OF MORAL EYIL. 



85 



evil, either to happiness or to misery as the choice of the 
trial. 

By the supreme love of God, we are to understand the 
predominance given to one of two choices. With every 
moral action of life, comes the choice of good or evil. If 
good is chosen, i. e., if we prefer to obey God's commands, 
then, in that action, the love of God is declared, and is 
supreme. If, upon the contrary, evil is chosen, i. e., if we 
prefer to disobey God's command, then in that action the love 
of God is not supreme, but the counter-love of evil is. Hence 
an action declares a choice. We cannot conceive of a moral 
action where this choice is not made. This makes love the 
motive of all action. 

We are especially to bear in mind, in this connection, that 
an action denominated wicked, may yet be infinitely merito- 
rious. Witness the act of the crucifixion of the Son of God. 
It was the act of brutal murderers. Yet upon it was sus- 
pended, and by it was seemed the recovery of the world from 
spiritual ruin. Then moral evil cannot be in human actions, 
nor in human choices, but in the divine enactments. 

The further development of the Theory makes these princi- 
ples plain, and establishes, we think, both their Scriptural and 
philosophical soundness and propriety. 

Xone can deny that God might have constructed an autom- 
aton and called it man, and fixed the law of necessity upon 
it that it should obey the commands of its Creator, and in 
this way have dispensed with moral evil. But he also would 
have closed the chapter of moral agency. The tallest arch- 
angel that ministers around the throne of God, would be as 
purely a mechanical contrivance as the sun or moon, had he 
been always deprived of the ability of rendering supreme 
voluntary love and obedience, in view of a possible counter- 
preference. Obedience is mechanical if it is not voluntary. 
We thus perceive how the institution is essential to preserve 



36 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



the attribute of benevolence of Deity, for without this institu- 
tion free affection would have been impossible, and all created 
existences would have been fixed in the tyranny of mechan- 
ical laws. 

It cannot be denied, that the man who, from divine original 
institutional necessity, prefers God supremely, is disconnected 
from moral good, because disconnected from moral evil : is 
disconnected from moral agency, and is not different from the 
machine of the artisan. 

The man who cries out against the existence of moral evil, 
cries out against the glorious trial of virtue, cries out against 
moral good, cries out against the freedom of the human 
will. 

If man is not provided with a means of choosing good 
and avoiding evil freely, then the institution is a malevolent 
one. 

The moral trials of life constitute the .touchstones of human 
virtue. The moral trials of life range from the lightest to the 
heaviest — from the light, averted look of changed affection, 
to involuntary servitude and a cruel death. They are the 
benevolent institutions of God. In the school of adversity 
only are tested, as well as nurtured, the hardiest virtues. In 
the institution of the consequences of moral evil there had, 
from necessity, to be a gradation from the lightest to the 
heaviest, in order to the fullest experiment of the human will 
under probationary laws. If we admit that God has stopped 
in this gradation of human trials with involuntary servitude 
and a cruel death, then it would follow that the very same argu- 
ments that would be adduced to charge unkindness upon God 
for the heavy, would apply with undiminished force and 
similar results with respect to the lightest. It is the part of 
wisdom to defer to God's classification, and to recognize his 
benevolence in the institution of moral probation, leaving it 
to him to fix its details. 



ORIGIN OF MORAL EVIL. 



37 



Then can we cleave to the philosophy, that behind a "frown- 
ing providence he hides a smiling face." Then can we cleave 
to the philosophy, that 

" All nature is but art, unknown to thee ; 
All chance, direction which thou canst not see ; 
All discord, harmony ill understood ; 
All partial evil, universal good." 



CHAPTER II. 



In which it is shown that Human Depravity is con- 
gruous with a Scheme of Human Redemption, or 
the Paralysis of the Religious Will with the 
Feasibility of Salvation. 

The original germ, or primal law of probation, under the 
government of a Creator of infinite love, must be the tribute 
of love voluntarily offered. And if God be the source of 
love, that voluntary return of love from created beings must 
be the effect of indirect action. If God be love, essentially, 
human love must be a derived or imparted quality. Hence 
it becomes necessary that there shall be some system of pro- 
bation, some school of trial, some dispensation of mercy, some 
scheme of salvation according to which that quality which is 
unoriginated in God, and which is, therefore, derivative in 
man (created or manifested in man), that principle, germ, or 
primordial element of probation, that voluntary love may be 
tested. If God be love, man, as a created being, cannot cer- 
tainly possess love unless it be bestowed upon him. There 
can be no question that God could have bestowed upon his 
creatures the principle of love by direct action. But that 
would have destroyed the experiment of human free agency. 
It is for this reason that Adam lived under two dispensations. 
A dispensation is a divine system, according to which man, 
as a probationer, may procure a principle or ability sufficient 
to enable him to render voluntary supreme love to God. He 
cannot obtain this ability without some divine system, be- 
cause God is love, and love is the principle man has to procure, 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 



39 



The Christian system, or the mediatorial method of re- 
ligion or love was added, or introduced at the instance of the 
Mediator, after Adam had forfeited his dispensation, and had 
become a sinner, with whom God could hold no direct inter- 
course of any kind, in order to enable him, according to the 
provisions of the new system, to procure that love, or princi- 
ple of free action that constituted his ability to love God 
supremely. 

Aside from the gift of the mediatorial system of salvation, 
Adam, after he fell, that is, after he lost his system of pro- 
curing grace, was not a free agent ; nor are any of his pos- 
terity free agents similarly situated. Those who reject the 
Christian system, prefer, as a matter of course, to try the ex- 
periment of free moral agency, circumstanced as Adam was 
circumstanced after he sinned, and before he availed himself 
of the benefit of the new system. If any individual thus ex~ 
perimenting with moral agency were to succeed in obeying 
the law of moral agency, he would have full authority in 
saying, that Christ Jesus was mistaken in supposing the 
mediatorial system to be necessary. The necessity of the 
Christian system is predicated upon the inability of man to 
love God supremely otherwise. Disconnect a sinner from the 
Christian system, and he can no more choose to love God 
with a supreme voluntary affection, in which way evil is 
avoided, by the exercise of independent volition, than he can 
institute a salvation dispensation, or create a God. It is evi- 
dent that to love God supremely, man must possess a quality 
that forms the essence of God's character — God is the motive 
principle of love. He is emphatically a good motive essen- 
tially. Whenever man acts from a good motive, by which 
we mean a disinterested motive, he acts from the impulses of 
a principle constituting the energetic character of God. No 
created being can act from a disinterested principle unless 
God imparts that principle to him, as the essence of his char- 



40 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



acter constitutes the principle. It is a singular circumstance 
in the history of philosophy, that the most unanswerable ar- 
gument in defence of the cardinal doctrine of the Christian 
system, and upon which its necessity depends, has been fur- 
nished by infidel writers. 

And it is not less singular that the most unanswerable 
argument why the Christian system was unnecessary and con- 
sequently untrue, has been given by philosophers professing 
the Christian religion. No doctrine, it seems to me, is more 
plainly taught in the Christian Scriptures, in which we find 
the history and exposition of the Christian system, than that 
man is naturally disabled from being influenced by a pure 
motive. The philosophy of David Hume and his coadjutors 
is the philosophy of the Scriptures. The Scriptures represent 
man, in his fallen estate, as an impure being. It is absurd 
to suppose that an impure being can act from a pure motive 
by natural ability. Man may be enabled to act from a disin- 
terested motive by the aid of an imparted principle, procured 
in virtue of the system of Christ ; but if he could do so natu- 
rally, the system would have been unnecessary. All that 
God requires of his creatures is to act from a pure motive, 
since God is himself the only pure motive. The natural ina- 
bility of man to act from a pure or disinterested motive, is what 
we understand by human depravity, or the paralysis of the 
religious will. It is this paralysis of the religious will, or 
this human depravity, or this inability to act from a pure 
motive, this spiritual death, that constitutes the necessity for 
the Christian system. The very and sole object of the divine 
system is to enable man to act from a pure motive. What 
is it to act from a pure motive ? Certainly nothing more 
and nothing less than to love God supremely. 

We are to remember that God constitutes the essence of 
infinite goodness, and it forms the motive principle of his char- 
acter. Whoever acts from this principle is in unison with 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 



him. The infinite goodness of God excludes the existence of 
any other principle of goodness, otherwise than as derivative 
from him. An infinite quality is necessarily an exclusive 
quality. "Whenever it ceases to be exclusive, it ceases to be 
infinite, and vice versa. The Scriptures say that man was 
made in the likeness of God. God being possessed but of 
one quality, the quality of goodness infinite, man must have 
been made a good finite being, if he bore the image of God. 
His finite goodness consisted in acting from a pure motive. 
A pure motive resolves itself into supreme love of God. 

The difficulty upon this subject that we expect to meet and 
explain is, how a being, unable to act from a pure motive, 
morally depraved, and having a paralyzed religious will, can 
ever come to act from a pure motive, to be morally pure, and 
to possess a free religious will or spiritual life ; or, in other 
words, to show the congruity between free salvation and a de- 
praved human will. 

We are always to regard the atonement scheme of human 
salvation as a system of probation laws suited to human 
beings, and instituted anterior to their creation, and delivered 
or put into operation after a certain event had arisen in hu- 
man probation, upon the happening of which it had been pred- 
icated and foreordained. The fall of Adam had been foreseen 
because it was provided for in the counsels of eternal wisdom. 

In the original experiment of moral probation with our 
first parents, the sum of moral evil consisted in the prohibi- 
tion with regard to the fruit of a particular tree, made attrac- 
tive to their senses, like the evil of the present day. The 
necessity for the enlargement of the statutes of moral evil, did 
not arise until our first parents had issue. The command- 
ments of the decalogue could have had but small application 
to Adam and Eve in their primeval trial of virtue. When 
our first parents failed in supreme love of God to be volun- 
tarily exhibited in corresponding conduct, which they did 



42 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



when their love for the attractive evil became supreme, man- 
ifested by indulgence in the prohibited fruit, manifested by 
love of the forbidden fruit, they became sinners in the sight 
of God. As sinners, they stood in the tide and course of the 
laws of sin. In this ruin they represented the human race. 
Here was a lamentable and ruinous involvement including 
the entire race. Here then the event had happened when 
the Lord Jesus Christ, according to foreordained and eternal 
counsels, as the friend of the human race, interposed in the 
case of their involvement in the persons of federal representa- 
tives, effected a restoration, and the mediatorial system of 
probation began its reign. 

The first trial of probation with the issues of eternity 
depending upon it failed, we are to observe, after all the 
moral and physical laws of God affecting man were in full 
operation. We are hence under a necessity of regarding the 
second trial under mediatorial laws as something collateral 
to, and independent of, and grafted upon, existing mora] and 
physical laws — as an offered system, yet as a system apart 
from human nature, and apart from moral philosophy. 
Hence a human being can never be born in the possession of 
the Christian religion, although he may be born sinless, and 
in the possession of all the moral and physical laws that 
existed at the day of the fall. The laws of the mediatorial 
system are laws of a system brought into play and operation 
and offered to human beings under pre-existing moral and 
physical laws. Hence it made no alteration in those laws. 
The laws of the new mediatorial trial of the will of man under 
the system of Jesus Christ, so far as respects man, was a free 
mercy grant ; but so far as respects the parties making this 
grant, as between them it is an agreement or a covenant, or a 
contract upon considerations the most indescribably interest- 
ing and inconceivably momentous. 

No reflection is more important, than that in consequence 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 



43 



of the essential unchangeableness of God's character he can 
undergo no direct change with respect to sin. The mediato- 
rial system worked no change in God with respect to the 
effects and consequences of sin — with respect to the effects 
and consequences of the violation of his moral govern- 
ment upon the part of human probationers. God now sus- 
tains the same relation to sin or to moral evil that he did 
when he first made man. Sin is as offensive to him now, 
and will produce the same effects precisely that it did when 
Adam, by primal transgression, violated his sole command. 
The mediatorial redemption laws, being a collateral advan- 
tage, a thing procured, has a net-work of laws peculiar to 
itself. Moral and physical laws, by w T hich we understand 
the laws of God aside from the Christian system, stand in 
statu quo with respect to God's immutable purposes, as they 
have ever stood. There are laws affecting the sinner grow- 
ing out of the stipulations of the atonement grant, it is 
admitted, but these belong to the grant as fixed stipulations, 
but yet only conditional, necessarily, as respects moral probation- 
ers. No law can operate upon free agents, except condition- 
ally, without destroying the freedom of the agency. If the 
free agent for whose benefit the covenant grants of salvation 
laws were procured, do not obtain, by free action, the advan- 
tages of the grants, they stand precisely as though no grant 
had been made. They abide the destiny of moral philoso- 
phy. Hence the stipulations of the redemption grant do not 
effect any change in the character of God respecting sin, 
aside from those stipulations, but merely protect those that 
by voluntary action bring themselves within the terms of the 
remedial laws. 

Certain parties may, quite consistently with the unchange- 
able nature of God with respect to sin, be exempted from the 
fixed effects of sin if God has agreed to exempt them for 
special considerations. They are exceptions to a standing 



44 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



rule. If he has agreed in covenant grants of redemption to 
protect a party from the established effects of sin, who com- 
plies with certain conditions, this amounts to no repeal or 
alteration of the general effects of sin. It is not for us to say 
what may have been the considerations offered by the Saviour, 
nor yet what may have been the motives that induced the 
Almighty to agree to enter into covenant grants of salvation, 
by which certain persons under moral trial may be exempted 
from the general effects of sin ; but certainly such a grant is 
no change of God's purposes with respect to sin in general, 
but only in respect to those excepted cases voluntarily avail- 
ing themselves of the benefit of the remedial statute. 

The difference between the Adamic and the mediatorial 
dispensation is nothing respecting the effects of sin. The 
effects of sin cannot change, unless God's character changes. 
God cannot say that the effects of sin shall be one thing one 
day, and another and different thing another day, unless his 
character undergoes a change. 

The only conceivable difference, then, between the effects 
of sin under the two different dispensations, as. for instance, 
upon our first parents in the primal dispensation, and upon 
them and their children under the mediatorial dispensation, 
is, that under the first, there were no mediator and no medi- 
atorial laws, and under the second there are. The Saviour 
has simply procured certain advantages for man upon granted 
conditions. The advantaged persons are those who comply 
with the condition of those advantages. 

It is therefore utterly illogical to attribute effects to sin un- 
der the primal dispensation, that are known not to result from 
it now, aside from the new or Christian dispensation. We 
maintain the same proposition when we affirm, that it is un- 
scriptural to insist that any of the benefits of the stipulations 
of the new salvation grant could accrue to those who reject 
them. 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 



45 



The just conclusion from this reasoning, if the reasoning- 
be just, is, that if an inquirer were curious to know what 
were the effects and consequences of sin under the primal 
dispensation, or rather, what were the state and destiny of 
Adam after he had violated the law of the moral government 
of his Creator, all that would be necessary to a proper con- 
ception of them would be, to find out what are the effects of 
sin now upon his posterity who disregard the provisions of 
the new dispensation, and to consult the unerring word of 
revealed wisdom, for the purpose of ascertaining what will be 
the future ultimate effects of sin in an eternal state, in which 
those effects will be fixed and unchangeable. The proper 
elucidation of this subject is necessary to a comprehension of 
the true character of that depravity produced by the sin of 
Adam. 

What are the effects of sin now, aside from the benefit of 
the atonement provisions ? Certainly not to change the na- 
ture of man in any astral or elementary quality, or to cause a 
new creation of distinct elements of character to arise. The 
effects of sin now in those instances where the benefits of the 
new system are disregarded, or absent, is to exclude God from 
the sanctuary of the human soul, bringing its train of ruinous 
consequences, imderstood to mean spiritual death ; to estab- 
lish a relation of enmity between God and the sinner ; to 
pollute the morals, deprave the passions, embitter the temper, 
and to introduce the dominion of the evil tempter, instead of 
the dominion of virtue, and to transfer that state and that 
condition into another state of existence, where all this moral 
ruin will be eternal and unchangeable. This is spiritual 
death. 

Adam stood in the current, and became the victim of these 
effects ; having excluded God and virtue, and hope of bliss- 
ful immortality, and spiritual life and liberty from his own 
bosom and that of his posterity, and was hastening on the 



46 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY . 



wings of time to an eternal state, where, as the tree falleth so 
it lieth, when Jesus Christ became his redeemer, and hence 
the redeemer of his race, bore his sins in his own person, and 
introduced the new mediatorial dispensation. 

These effects were at work, because the sentence had been 
inflicted, when he was purchased by the price of the blood of 
the mediator ; pardoned, because without the shedding of 
blood there is no remission of sin, and as the head and repre- 
sentative of his children subsequently to be born, who shared 
his peril as being in him seminally, and also shared his trans- 
fer, was placed under the operation of the mediatorial laws, 
and began a life of moral pilgrimage again ; received a new 
trial of moral agency under the conditionary provisions of 
the new dispensation. 

Adam was certainly a religious being when he was cre- 
ated ; he certainly became irreligious previously to his death. 
His fall is considered as indicating the loss of his religion. If 
he was yet afterwards saved, he must have again become 
religious, since it is conceded that none but religious people 
are qualified for heaven. 

The important question that presents itself, in view of these 
considerations, is, what could have been the nature and qual- 
ity, and what the specific name of that religion which he pos- 
sessed at the creation, and which he lost at the fall ? It could 
not have been called by the name of the Christian religion, 
because the Christian system, by which that religion which is 
called the Christian religion is procured, was not introduced 
until after the fall. We think we are warranted in supposing 
that religion as a gift or endowment, emanating from an un- 
changeable God, by whatever system, or testament, or dispen- 
sation it may be procured, is precisely the same religion — is 
always precisely the same invigorating, effect-producing qual- 
ity or germ of activity, or endowment of soul ; that the relig- 
ion that Adam possessed at his creation, the religion that he 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 



47 



lost at his fall, and the religion that he afterwards regained, in 
the probable or supposed event of his redemption, was the 
same identical religion. But the after-religion is called the 
Christian religion, not because it differed or differs from the 
precedent religion, but merely because it is procured accord- 
ing to the system, or testament, or dispensation, or gospel of 
Jesus Christ. Nothing can be truer than that the first re- 
ligion was the Adamic religion, but Adamic only because it was 
obtained under a system of free agency, dispensed to him in 
the first experiment of human trial, and not Adamic because 
there is any difference in an imparted quality of soul coming 
from an unchangeable God. Dispensations may vary, but 
the religion they impart must necessarily be identical. 

Frequent occasions will arise in the further examination of 
the subject, in which it will be necessary to inquire whether 
it is not an error to consider the mediatorial grants as having 
been introduced for the benefit of the human family, as such, 
primarily, and not consequentially as the children of the ori- 
ginal donees. 

If it should be found to be true, upon investigation, that 
the Christian redemption dispensation, with all its various 
phases and various machinery of salvation, was instituted and 
" foreordained" in the counsels of eternal wisdom, " before 
the foundation of the world," and w T as variously manifested 
or revealed for the use and benefit of the descendants of guilty 
federal representatives, as heirs that inherit from the parent — 
that the descendants of the originally guilty heads of the race 
claim the operation of its beneficent provisions consequentially, 
as children represented by the parent — the mind of the Chris- 
tian world would be at once relieved from the vexed ques- 
tion of predestination in its repulsive features and train of un- 
happy consequences. The predestination of institutions is a 
question of a different character from the predestination of 
individual volition. If we bear in mind that the party that 



18 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY . 



fell was the party restored ; that had there been no fall, 
there had need to have been no restoration ; that a restora- 
tion presupposes a fall, it will follow, that if the human fam- 
ily fell by representation, it was restored by representation. 
(1 Pet. 20.) 

The issue of the first pair of human beings was never in 
the original trial, nor in the original offence, nor in the ori- 
ginal fall, except by representation in federal heads, and con- 
sequently could not have needed or required a restoration, 
except by representation. 

The trial and the offence, and the fall and the restoration, 
were all existing facts, when a human family properly made 
its appearance. A human family are persons born of human 
parents, in contradistinction from an original creation. 

It is apparent that a restoration upon the basis of a ransom 
could only apply to those that had fallen ; and a fall by rep- 
resentation, contemplates a restoration by representation, and 
if the human family were the partakers of the consequences 
of the offence of guilty progenitors, they must be consequent 
partakers of the restoration of guilty progenitors. Nothing 
is plainer than that the primal commandment of God, that 
" of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat ; but of the 
tree of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day 
thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die," was never delivered 
to the posterity of Adam, or by any one of them ever vio- 
lated. God could have no difficulty with them upon that 
account. 

We do not perceive how the conclusion can be avoided, 
that all the bitter and all the sweet, connected either directly 
or remotely with a scheme of mediatorial moral probation, 
or free agency under the Christian system, the human family 
derive through Adam and Eve. 

Human depravity, then, is the moral condition of the 
human family derived from the original progenitors of the 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 49 



race, and the restoration is the Christian dispensation applied 
to that moral condition. 

This subject is rendered plainer by bearing in mind the 
principal events in this momentous drama, and the order of 
their occurrence. 

The Scriptures declare, — 1st, The moral probation of the 
federal heads of a human family under a dispensation, in 
which direct intercourse with God prevailed without any 
mediator. 

2d, The failure of that probationary trial by the violation 
of the statute of moral evil, and the consequent withdrawal 
of the dispensation. 

3d, The infliction of the penalty, or the actual fall : the 
spiritual death. 

4th, The restoration, or the introduction of the mediatorial 
dispensation, prepared from eternity, according to which we 
are saved. 

5th, The birth of issue, or the commencement of a moral 
probation with a human family. 

The moral probation, the failure of that probation, the 
actual fall, and the restoration, all occurred before the com- 
mencement of a human family. 

Adam became a Christian before he became a father. 
Was Adam redeemed by Christ Jesus ? If he was not his 
children could not be, because, not being born, they had 
done nothing to require it. Their offence had been a repre- 
sentative offence. If Adam was not redeemed, his children 
could not be, because they partook of his offence. It was 
necessary to redeem the father in order to get at the chil- 
dren. The children could not have been otherwise reached 
in order to remedy a defect derived from the father, unless 
the cure began with the father. How could Adam's child 
obtain pardon unless Adam had been pardoned, when the 
child's sin was a seminal sin. The children stand in the 

3 



50 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIAOTTT. 



father's shoes. Can an impure parent produce a pure off- 
spring ? Can a federal infirmity be remedied in the chil- 
dren ? If so, the two are disconnected. If a pardon was 
possible for the child who was guilty of a seminal or federal 
sin, then the child is possessed of a right or privilege he did 
not receive from the father, and hence it must have been a 
gift to the child, having no relation to the parent. Can a 
child have a right the father did not transmit ? He may, it 
is certain, but then this right can have no relation to the 
condition of the father. It is an independent thing. It 
would be a grant to the child, having no kind of relation to 
the father. If this were true of the Christian system, then 
the Christian system has no connection with Adam's fall, but 
is an independent gift to Adam's children, as children, as 
independent persons. The Christian system, on the con- 
trary, is predicated upon a representative fall. There is a 
chain of causation between them. This system was given 
because Adam had fallen. This is not true if it were given 
to Adam's children for their benefit, disconnected from him. 
If the father was not beneficially connected with the Chris- 
tian system, how could his child, in virtue of being his child, 
be connected with it ? Adam's children were connected with 
the Christian system because they were his children in futu- 
ro. Now it was impossible upon rational grounds, as well 
as useless upon Scriptural grounds, to connect Adam and 
Eve with a Christian system, unless they were pardoned and 
redeemed from the guilt of the primal sin. How could Adam 
ever obtain pardon for his original transgression, according to 
the Christian system ? God would not be guilty of the folly 
of a retrospective pardon. His sin had not been committed 
under it. It had been committed under the precedent dis- 
pensation, that contained no provision for the remission of 
sin. Adam and his children could not have obtained remis- 
sion of a common sin under the Adamic salvation law, be- 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 51 

cause that law did not provide for such a case ; and they 
could not obtain remission under the Christian system, be- 
cause their sin, being committed before the laws of the Chris- 
tian system began to run, and a pardon would otherwise 
have been in virtue of posterior enactments. The Christian 
system provided for future not for precedent transgressions. 
There would have been no utility in placing Adam or his 
children under a new system, " according to" which, sins may 
be remitted, because they were guilty of a sin the new system 
could not affect. It was impossible for the Christian system 
to pardon Adam 's sin, and it would have been the height of 
unwise things to bring persons under a new dispensation, 
when the sins committed under a different dispensation were 
hanging over them and unforgiven, and unpardonable. The 
material object in placing them under a new dispensation, 
must certainly have been to enable them to acquire the ben- 
efits of the system. The Christian system provides for the 
remission of sins committed under it, not for sins otherwise 
committed. What effect could complying with the condi- 
tion of the Christian system have upon the fate and condition 
of fallen angels ? Just the same it would have had upon 
Adam unless his first sin had been pardoned. Adam would 
have had no greater reason to expect pardon by complying 
with the condition of the Christian system, than the fallen 
angels have. Their sins were not committed under it. 

The reconciliation between Adam and Eve, as the repre- 
sentatives of a prospective human family, and their Creator, 
is not the kind of reconciliation supposed by Socinus and 
his followers to have taken place. They speak of a reconcil- 
iation procured in virtue of the Gospel dispensation — in 
virtue of the provisions of the mediatorial system. That 
would be absurd. They deny the doctrine of the imputed 
righteousness of Christ. The reconciliation we advocate is 
one that preceded in point of time the introduction of the 



52 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



Christian system, and it is upon this reconciliation that the 
Christian system is predicated. We maintain that Christ 
ransomed Adam — redeemed him from the ruin of the fall — 
bore his sin in his own body on the prospective tree, aud 
thereby reconciled him to God, and then started him and his 
wife, as the progenitors of a future race, holding the human 
family in their loins, upon a new probation under a new sys- 
tem. This is the only way, we can reconcile the consistency 
of infant salvation w T ith a conditionary salvation system. 
This is the only way, we can make any rational meaning out 
of the conversation between our Lord and Xicodemus. This 
is the only view that will sustain the integrity and veracity 
of God's character. 

There is, in the conversation between Nicodemus and the 
Saviour, a marked emphasis placed upon a second birth, 
highly interesting in this connection. 

After Nicodemus had stated, what is undeniably true, that 
man cannot be born again naturally, and after Christ had 
explained to him quite plainly that he had no reference to a 
natural birth, for the plain reason he gave, that " that is 
flesh, is flesh," — that kind of birth not entering in the subject- 
matter of his instructions, — he yet repeats distinctly, in the 
most impressive language, that with reference to religious 
matters, it is necessary that man should be born twice. The 
allusion then was not to a first natural birth, because a natu- 
ral birth has no relation to the salvation of the soul. A 
natural birth does not enter into the subject of religion more 
than any other natural phenomenon. Hence, in order to 
comprehend the nature and character of the first of the two 
births alluded to by Christ, we must banish from our minds 
all consideration of the phenomena of nature, as not being 
german to the subject. Our Saviour says, " that which is 
born of the flesh is flesh ; that which is born of the spirit is 
spirit." He thus disconnects the two subjects entirely, and 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 



58 



repeats his first observation with regard to two religious 
births. Hence those commentators Avho persist in supposing 
the reference to a first birth to be to a first natural birth, dis- 
regard this marked and emphatic disconnection of the two 
dissimilar subjects. Our Saviour desires to be understood 
as having; no reference at all to an effort of nature. His 
subject is a spiritual or religious one, and he has reference 
exclusively to the human soul. 

It is very true that the phrase " to be born," applies both 
to a natural and a spiritual birth. Nothing is more com- 
mon, even in our day, with a language greatly enlarged, 
than for one word to convey two dissimilar ideas. In the 
Scriptures, for example, to eat implies to take food and to 
take the sacrament. To sleep . means to die and to take 
natural rest. So, to be born means, to obtain religion, and 
to enter naturally into life. If we remove from the consid- 
eration of the conversation between Christ and JSTicodemus 
the alien matter of a birth of nature, and confine our atten- 
tion to the birth of the soul, it is at once obvious that Nico- 
demus could not be born religiously a second time, unless 
he had been born religiously a first time. 

In the conversation our Saviour appears to have been 
desirous to teach two important religious facts — 1st, That 
all men must be born again in order to come into the posses- 
sion of the Christian religion ; 2d, That this second birth is 
a second religious birth. 

All of the posterity of Adam are born religious at the 
natural birth. This follows necessarily from the federal 
redemption. 

"When a child is now born, why is he not religious ? Sin 
is the only cause of irreligion, and a child cannot sin. The 
only thing that can be laid to its charge is a federal sin. If 
that makes it irreligious it must forever continue irreligious, 
because the Christian system cannot reach it. It cannot 



54 



TRUE THEORY OP CHRISTIANITY. 



reach it for the reason that it can have no retrospective oper- 
ation. It cannot reach it for the yet stronger reason, that 
the Christian system is conditionary. The Christian redemp- 
tion was not so. The Christian system could not be a proba- 
tionary system, unless it were conditionary. 

The laws of the Christian system are necessarily prospect- 
ive, because it is a probationary system. It is a system 
addressed to moral probationers born under it. It cannot 
apply to other persons. It is a mere absurdity to say that 
pardon for sins committed before the system began to prevail 
is at all consistent with its prospective probationary condition- 
ary character. 

The effect of sin, aside from the Christian system, is to 
produce spiritual death. Hence, when Adam sinned, he 
died. This is the unchangeable law of God, aside from the 
Christian system. The same thing happens now whenever 
a moral probationer sins before he becomes a Christian. 
He dies spiritually. This is what makes the second spiritual 
or Christian birth necessary. The system of Jesus Christ is 
a system addressed to sinners. Hence infants are not saved 
in virtue of the Christian system, because the system applies 
only to sinners, — persons spiritually dead in consequence of 
the first sin, — and is in its character inflexibly conditionary. 
Infants are saved in virtue of the representative pardon and 
restoration. Men are born into the world religious, but 
where one sin produces death, and where the Christian sys- 
tem prevails. It is a system of revealed salvation laws de- 
signed to benefit sinners, who, by complying with its condi- 
tion, may be born alive again, for the reason that aside from 
the Christian system, all men that sin die a spiritual death. 

Men are not then, in the first instance, at nature's birth, 
ever born Christians, although they are born religious. 
None ever obtain the Christian religion properly but sinners, 
for the system was designed for such exclusively. So, when 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 



55 



a man becomes a Christian, then he is under the benefit of 
its laws, and a first or only sin does not work spiritual death. 

Religion is God's grace, whether it be the Adamic or 
the Christian religion. The Christian religion is so called 
because it is obtained according to the systein of Christ, 
which is exclusively conditionary ; but it is the grace of God, 
There is only one kind of religion, because there is but one 
original first cause or motive whence it can emanate. 

We suppose children to be born in the precise condition 
in which their federal father was placed after the pardon of 
the primal sin, after the restoration, and precedent to either a 
subsequent sin, or to the subsequent Christian spiritual birth. 

We presume that after Adam was pardoned his 'first sin 
committed under his first dispensation, and was thereby 
restored to favor, he was then placed upon probation again, 
under the laws of the new conditionary mediatorial system. 
Xow his first sin under the new probation would produce 
spiritual death, undoubtedly, because such is the usual effect 
of sin. So that, so soon as he sinned, after the pardon of his 
primal sin, and after he began probation under a condition- 
ary system, it then became necessary for him to comply with 
the condition of the new system in order to obtain the Chris- 
tian religion. 

That Adam was ransomed is not to be denied. The pos- 
sibility of a second Christian or mediatorial probation is pred- 
icated upon it, without which the second probation would 
be useless. Hence the question arises, when did the pardon 
occur ? It must necessarily have occurred anterior to the 
introduction and application of the new system to him ; for 
the new system is God's propitiated divine love for man. 
Hence it follows that he must have been put under the oper- 
ation of the new system as a guiltless man, by a propitiated 
God, for otherwise the condition of the new system would 
have availed him nothing. Faith is the condition of the 



56 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



Christian system, but it has nothing to do with sins com- 
mitted under the precedent dispensation. Faith was not a 
condition of the Adamic trial, consequently it could not have 
obtained the pardon for his sin. Then we are to conclude 
that Adam passed from under the operation of the old, and 
came under the operation of the new, salvation laws, as a par- 
doned man, and hence it only became necessary for him to 
avail himself of its benefits after he again fell into sins against 
God. Adam's case is the case of his children. 

Hence, his first sin under the new system, in the event of 
his sinning before he complied with the condition, produced 
the consequence of spiiitual death, — a consequence that 
belongs to sin, aside from the Christian system. So that 
after this death, or after he became a sinner, then it became 
necessary for him to apply to the condition of the new pro- 
bationary system by the means of which a new spiritual life 
is brought about, and he then obtained the Christian religion. 
Just so with his children now. They enter into life holy. 
They sin. They die. They apply to faith as the condition 
of the new system, and are again born spiritually. They 
then, become Christians : that is, they obtain the religion, or 
the grace of God according to the provisions of the heavenly 
enactments of salvation agreed upon between God and Christ, 
The tragedy of Eden is proof that one sin is attended with 
the consequence of spiritual death . One sin makes a man a 
sinner as completely as a thousand. He is, we admit, not as 
bad a sinner, but he is nevertheless a sinner. 2vow sin, which 
is a violation of the divine command, cannot be tolerated by 
God, and hence its effect is to sever all ties of affection and 
intercourse between God and the guilty person ; and the 
guilty person, ex necessitate rei, aside from the Christian sys- 
tem, runs into a course of sin. This is spiritual death. God, 
or God's grace, or God's communion and intercourse with 
the soul constitutes the life of the soul, and when this sus- 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 



57 



taming and joyful intercourse is suspended, spiritual death is 
the necessary consequence. They are, indeed, identical. Or- 
dinarily, or aside from the system of Jesus Christ, which is 
conditionary, a career of necessary and uninterrupted wicked- 
ness is the result, in virtue of fixed salvation laws. Now the 
system of Jesus Christ is a provision of salvation laws suited 
to this state of the creature. It being conditionary, the sinner 
complies with its condition, and God, or God's grace, or his 
intercourse, both joyful and sustaining, is again bestowed 
upon the soul, and the soul then becomes alive ; is born 
again; is possessed of the Christian religion; and thus ob- 
tains religion a second time. 

We are to remember that the statutes of moral evil are 
changed. There is no such thing as violating the com- 
mand of God that caused the death or fall of Adam. It is 
no longer evil. It is no longer moral evil to eat an apple. 
Eating an apple no longer causes spiritual death. It has 
been repealed. Other commands are substituted in lieu of it. 
Hence there is nothing to make a child a sinner unless he 
violates a command of Jesus Christ. 

The only way to disobey God is to disobey the laws of a 
mediatorial dispensation. It is just as impossible, since the 
fall of Adam, for God to give a new law to his creature, as 
to hold direct spiritual intercourse with him. It is a cardi- 
nal tenet of the Bible that God can hold no direct inter- 
course with a sinner. This is what makes the indirect in- 
tercourse necessary. A sinner requires a mediator in conse- 
quence of the inflexible character of the purity of God. 

Hence it is impossible for a child to be a sinner at birth 
since the restoration, because the only way in which a crea- 
ture can become a sinner is to disobey Jesus Christ. The 
Adamic dispensation is entirely abrogated. It has ceased 
to operate. If a child cannot sin unless he violates the com- 
mand of Jesus Christ, how can it be a sinner unless it is 
3* 



5S 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



a federal sinner ? But Adam's sin was pardoned. The blood 
of Calvary was the propitiatory sacrifice for it. But suppose 
it was not pardoned, and a child is born guilty of a fed- 
eral sin ! How can he ever obtain the pardon of that sin ? 
He certainly cannot obtain it according to the condition of 
the Christian system — according to this foreordained will 
of God ; because that is a posterior establishment ; — is an 
ex post facto law. If God can hold direct intercourse with 
a sinner guilty of a sin committed under the Adamic dispen- 
sation, in consequence of his complying with a condition, 
there would have been no imperative necessity for any divine 
indirect intervention. It would have saved Jesus Christ 
much actual suffering. Certainly the Christian system could 
provide no condition suitable to a sin committed under a 
precedent administration. The sin abides the consequences of 
the laws of the administration. God's character for integrity, 
and honesty, and veracity, is to be preserved in all Scriptural 
interpretations. This doctrine would make Adam work out 
his own salvation with fear and trembling under the Chris- 
tian system, according to its laws. If he could do this, 
where was the use of the shed blood of Christ ? All that 
would have been requisite would have been a change of sal- 
vation laws. The Christian system might simply have been 
revealed and put upon operation, and Adam could then work 
out his salvation, which implies pardon of all sins, according 
to its divine provisions, and Christ would have been saved- 
his incarnation and tragic death. It was sin that demanded 
the shed blood. 

Now when a Christian sins, he does not die a spiritual 
death. And why? Because he is a Christian. He is 
under the operation of the peculiar laws of the system. He 
has complied with its condition. He has a mediator. Christ 
is his friend, and pardon is easy upon repentance and fidel- 
ity. But it is not so with one who is not and has never 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 



59 



been a Christian. If a soul not Christianized sins, spiritual 
death is the unvarying and necessary consequence ; because 
God can hold no direct intercourse with a sinner, and the 
indirect intercourse being inflexibly conditionary, it follows 
necessarily that a soul must be deprived of God's grace, which 
is spiritual life, since it has forfeited it by sin, and cannot 
obtain it directly, and has not complied with the condition 
of the indirect mediatorial system, by which this lost grace 
or spiritual life may be again obtained. 

An infant is a created cause of action. It cannot sin until 
it can cause an action. Now God is the one and only unorigi- 
nated cause of all created causes. God, as the original cause, 
causes the derived cause existing in the infant, and if the 
infant be unholy, God is, then, the original cause of the unho- 
liness ; a supposition that destroys both the purity and benev- 
olence of his character. 

Whom does this reasoning especially bind '? Calvinists. 
The divine will, says Calvin, "is, in fact, and is justly entitled 
to be, the cause of every thing that exists." For, says he, if 
this will " has any cause, then there must be something 
antecedent on which it depends, which it is impious to sup- 
pose." A cause is something that produces effects. An 
infant is a divine effect, and it is also a sub-cause, or a cre- 
ated cause ; — that is, an infant is a derived principle that can 
cause effects. Actions, whether sinful or otherwise, are 
effects. If an infant can be unholy before it causes, before 
it produces an action or effect, it is fair and full proof of an 
impure or unholy first cause. A first cause infinite in good- 
ness, cannot create an unholy secondary cause, consistently 
with the infinite goodness ; because it would imply a good- 
ness less than infinite. But a holy sub-cause, or a holy 
secondary principle of action, or a created cause, as is an 
infant, may become unholy, when it produces effects or 
actions, and if it be free, it is then its own fault. 



60 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



It was the remark of Arminius, that " Adam before he fell, 
was enabled only by the assistance of divine grace, to perform 
the true good according to the commandment," We under- 
stand by this, that Adam in his first estate was enabled to 
obey God : was enabled to comply with the law of God, in 
consequence of an imparted principle of strength. If it was 
the divine grace that enabled him to obey, must it not have 
been want of it that caused him to sin ? 

We do not propose here to arrest the particular subject 
under review, in order to maintain the proposition, that there 
is but one principle of action applicable either to God or men, 
We merely affirm it. The principle of activity in God, devils, 
and rnen, is the same. It is the principle of Love. The only 
difference recognizable in the principle, as developed in God r 
and men, and devils, is the source and application of it. The 
principle operating in devils and wicked men is simply a mis- 
directed application of the derived principle. Love is the mo- 
tive power of creation, because God is love, and every created 
thing is the offspring of love. Every manifestation is an effect 
of love, either properly or improperly directed. Every action, 
and every desire, and every manifestation «of the objective 
world, is the product of the motive principle of love, whether 
these various manifestations be good or bad. This motive prin- 
ciple in God is pure, because it is God himself or love. Hence 
the devil derives his principle of action from God. He is 
will fallen from pure love. Hence wicked men derive their 
principle of action from God : man, and the principle of ac- 
tion in man, being different. In these latter instances the 
principle is directed to evil purposes. Devils and wicked 
men love evil, and hence their deeds are evil : the love being 
the producing cause. God is love, and pure love in the 
creature is the fulfilling of the law. " The love of Christ con- 
strain eth us : faith worketh by love : greater love hath no 
man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends : 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 



61 



love easteth out fear : who loveth God, loveth his brother : 
re that love the Lord, hate evil : hence the converse of the 
proposition is necessarily true, that he that loveth evil hateth 
God in precise proportion to his love of evil." In all 
these examples love is a motive principle that causes ; that 
caused creation ; that caused moral probation ; that caused 
the fall ; that caused the atonement ; that gives life and mo- 
tion to the varied machinery of the outer world in every de- 
partment ; — in every instance of developed activity. This 
is so because God is love — God is the highest development 
of disinterested love under the guidance of perfect wisdom 
and power. The devil is a created will, indicating the high- 
est development of interested or impure love, under the guid- 
ance of his communicated measure of knowledge and power. 
The existence of the arch-fiend in the spiritual world of God 
is so much the greater proof of the benevolence of God's 
character, as he is a higher order of creation than the wicked 
man of this outer material probationary existence. Were 
there no wicked men, there could be no good men, and were 
there no wicked angels, there could have been no good angels, 
and God's throne would have been surrounded with mere me- 
chanical contrivances. There can be no good men unless op- 
portunity be given for them to become wicked. If God were to 
remove the opportunity, men would be good from fixed influ- 
ences. It is free agency that divides men and angels from beasts 
and trees. Free agency requires the institution of evil to make 
it free. These points arise again, farther on in the discussion. 

Referring now to the remark of Arminius, that Adam was 
enabled by the assistance of divine grace to perform the true 
good, according to the commandment, and bearing in mind 
that divine grace must mean divine love, since love is the ex- 
clusive motive principle of action, producing good or bad ac- 
tions in precise proportion as the love is pure or otherwise, 
we think the Scriptural account of the creation of Adam is 



62 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



in strong support of the opinion of this eminent divine. 
This account says that Adam was made a living soul. 

It is worthy of particular notice, and we desire to direct 
the special attention of theologians to the fact, that Adam is 
said by the divinely inspired historian, to have become a 
" living soul," after the breath of life, or after " life" had been 
imparted to him. The following is the passage to which we 
allude. " And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the 
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and 
man became a living soul." Had the writer intended merely 
to describe the creation of animal life, he would have closed 
with the sentence, that God " breathed into his nostrils the 
breath of life." Nothing more is needed to describe animal 
life. So his becoming a living soul after life had been given 
to him is a different and distinct exhibition of creative energy, 
and hence the farther historical description. Adam could 
not have become a living soul, because animal life was 
breathed into his body of clay, that the finger of God had 
just fashioned, because animal life and a living soul imply 
different things. Man has animal life in common with brutes, 
but he has not a living soul in common with brutes. The 
breathing the breath of life into the nostrils of fabricated 
clay is attended with no such consequence as the communi- 
cation of even a soul, as we perceive in the vegetable and 
animal kingdoms, of course much less of a living soul. The 
breath of life might have been breathed into the clay con- 
trivance designed for Adam, and he might have become a 
living animal, and yet not only not had a living soul, but no 
soul at all. But it seems a living soul was imparted to 
him after he had become instinct with animal life. A living 
soul must be considered as something distinct from animal 
life, and also as something distinct from a soul not liv- 
ing. A living soul justifies us in implying, that there is and 
may be a dead soul, either of which may be applicable to a 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 



63 



human being, as a living animal. Hence a man, as a living 
animal, may either have a living soul or a dead soul. By a 
living soul, we infer a soul in the possession of the grace 
mentioned by Arminius, and by a dead soul, one dispossessed 
of that grace. God is a living soul, because he is love. Love 
and grace imply the same principle. 

When Adam was made, he was made a living animal, and 
then a living soul, and he continued to be a living soul as 
long as he continued innocent, but when he sinned he be- 
came a dead soul, although he continued to be a living man. 
The soul of man, then, is alive when it has the love or grace 
of God, and dead when these have departed. A sinner is dead 
in sin. Now let us refer for a moment to the threatening that 
had been suspended over Adam, in case he sinned. 

" Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of 
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not 
eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt 
surely die." — Gen. xi. 17. 

The true meaning of this language, so far as it relates to 
the death that was to ensue in the event that Adam eat of 
the tree of good, and in addition, the tree of evil, is not to be 
obscured by any supposed reference to the death of Adam's 
body. Such a supposed allusion cannot bear a moment's ex- 
amination. We are to remember, that at the very moment 
of time when this august denunciation of death against Adam 
in the day of his transgression issued from the lips of the 
Lord God, he knew that the sentence would not be inflicted, 
if it meant the death of the body, for over three hundred 
thousand days after the offence. If this threatening has any 
reference to the death of the body, God knew very well when 
he uttered it, as " surely" to happen in the " day" of the 
transgression, that it would not happen until after the close 
of over three hundred thousand days. An interpretation 
that involves the character of God in a falsehood, at once 



64: 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



manifest and plain, clear and unequivocal, is never to be tol- 
erated for a moment. This supposed allusion to the body and 
its period of passage from probationary life is calculated to dis- 
tract the attention, and misdirect it from the solemn spiritual 
death — the death of the living soul — threatened, upon the 
issue of which was suspended the important interest of 
eternity and eternal joy, or misery. When the Lord God 
told Adam in the first instance, that he should surely die in 
the day of his transgression, he made to him no vain and de- 
ceptive menace. So when he disregarded God's law, the 
penalty, the punishment, the death, was inflicted in the day, 
and in all the fulness and entirety of the sense in which it 
had been threatened. Nothing was held back. Nothing 
could be held back without an impeachment of God's veracity. 
The fall then occurred. The infliction of the penalty consti- 
tutes the fall of the human family in the persons of guilty 
federal representatives. Now, unless the mediatorial dispen- 
sation intervened, the whole human family in their federal 
representatives seminally, were hopelessly in ruins, exposed to 
the wrath of God, deprived of the motive principle of good 
actions, prone to evil, in spiritual darkness and spiritual 
nudity, and tending to the door of temporal death, through 
which they were to pass into an eternal state where this con- 
dition would be remediless and unchangeable. If ever Adam 
or his seminal issue could hope for the favor of God after his 
soul had lost its vitality by sin, it could be by virtue of no 
quality existing in their nature. 

Adam and his race seminally were in the folds of a reme- 
diless ruin when Jesus Christ interposed, ransomed the parents 
and the future posterity along with them, and introduced the 
mediatorial system. St. Paul writes to Timothy, " For there 
is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the 
man Jesus Christ, who gave himself a ransom for all to be 
testified in due time.-'' This testimony was made and closed 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 



65 



on Calvary. The death of Christ was the testimony in due 
time of the anterior ransom. 

Although we hold that Adam was ransomed, pardoned, 
and placed under the new dispensation as a holy man, it 
does not, therefore, follow that his depravity could go. What 
are we to understand by human depravity ? Nothing more 
than the absence of the religious system of Adam, the mode 
of procuring grace, and the grace peculiar to his primal dis- 
pensation. Man acting always from a derived impulse, can- 
not act from a good impulse unless God communicate it to 
him. Thus, when Adam sinned, God could no longer con- 
tinue to supply him with that measure of grace, and in that 
mode that had prevailed previous to his transgression, and as 
a consequence he was under a necessity to act from an im- 
pure motive. This establishes the selfish system in moral phi- 
losophy. Adam, as well as his children, were and are under 
a necessity to prefer evil, because they have no ability to pre- 
fer good, the first dispensation having failed, and the advan- 
tage of the second not procured. Men now can, by the aid 
of the Christian system, since the Christian system is the 
will of God, be enabled to act from a pure motive, but then 
that system only benefits those persons who comply with its 
condition. After Adam was placed under the mediatorial 
system it was competent for him to procure the grace of God, 
by complying with the condition of that system, and thus 
might have been enabled to love God supremely. His chil- 
dren now may do the same thing. But suppose they disre- 
gard the Christian system, they are precisely in Adam's situa- 
tion after his dispensation was withdrawn. They are under 
a circumstantial necessity to act from an impure motive, or 
in other words, to run into sin. This is what is called a ten- 
dency to sin. It is evident it is a circumstantial, not a natu- 
ral tendency. The remedy is Christ Jesus' system. 

This point we shall investigate with great care. 



66 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



We think Christians damage the character of God very- 
much, when they contend that there is a tendency or bias in 
human nature to evil, and from God. We think the precise 
contrary is the precise truth of the Scriptures. There is an 
undeniable tendency from God and to evil, discoverable in 
the conduct of men from infancy to the grave, but it is a cir- 
cumstantial, not a natural tendency. 

If it should appear that this tendency is a circumstantial 
one, then mankind in the persons of their common progeni- 
tors are to blame for it. This gives point to the fall. If it 
be shown that a bias exists in human nature, then God is to 
blame for it if it be evil, because he is the Creator of human 
nature. 

The Christian system of laws by which the grace of God 
may be obtained, is now the only system that can effectuate 
this result. God bestowed another, but a prior one upon 
Adam and Eve, but in consequence of their sin, it was with- 
drawn. The Christian system enables a sinner to prefer to 
love God supremely ; or, in other words, enables a sinner to 
avoid the choice of evil ; but there is no other system that 
can do this. Hence mankind are unable to love God supreme- 
ly ; or in other words, are unable to avoid the choice of evil, 
for the reason that the Christian system being the only sys- 
tem that can furnish this power or motive principle ; of course 
men have no natural power or motive principle to avoid evil, 
or avoid the choice of evil, — hence this tendency is a circum- 
stantial, not a natural tendency. 

Man can only be a religious being according to the provi- 
sions of the mediatorial dispensation. Until he does make 
use of this system, by complying with its condition, he is the 
victim of a depravity of will, prone to evil, and led captive at 
the will of the " adversary serpent." This malign influence, 
begins the moment the human intellect ripens sufficiently to 
comprehend the distinctions of good and evil. No wonder 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 67 



that we behold the tendency to vice beginning so early, con- 
tinuing so long, and producing such waste in the moral land- 
scape of life. Man's tendency to evil may now be traced to 
its proper source. Man cannot love good with supreme 
affection by natural ability. To effect this, it requires a dis- 
pensation. In the mean time, while this dispensation is dis- 
regarded, or unknown, or untried, a new dynasty reigns su- 
preme in the heart of man. An authority adverse to good 
prevails at head-quarters. The righteous king has abandon- 
ed the despoiled dominions, and his seat is occupied by the 
fell adversary. The subjects, capable of control only under 
the sway of legitimate authority, are rebellious under usurped 
authority — spiritual darkness prevails, and the love of evil 
becomes supreme. 

Much may be gained in this investigation in order to 
acquire proper conceptions of the character of God, by the 
use of proper appellatives : he is called God, but the term 
is a superstitious nomenclature, not a descriptive appellation. 
God is goodness, — he is not a person, but a spirit, or a 
principal or first unoriginated cause. He is the essence 
of a quality — he is essential benevolence. Hence good- 
ness, or kindness, or mercy, or benevolence, or religion, are 
descriptive names for the Supreme Being, whenever those 
terms imply infinite, essential goodness. When we speak 
therefore of infinite mercy, or kindness, or goodness, or reli- 
gion, or benevolence, or grace, or love, we mean God. God 
being the motive principle of creation, and being essentially 
good, every manifested goodness is a finite exhibition of his 
character. Infinite love is infinite grace ; as infinite grace is 
infinite religion ; as infinite religidh is infinite benevolence, — 
these terms all indicate the motive principle we call God. De- 
stroy this principle and you destroy God. Destroy the prin- 
ciple of love, and you arrest creation by dethroning its ener- 
getic ruler. Destroy love and you arrest motion, — love is 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



an immaterial, original, spiritual existence, infinite in its char- 
acter, and perfect in the attributes of wisdom and power. 
Love is God. Man is a finite principle of volition, manifest- 
ed in fabricated clay made vital with animal life, and endow- 
ed with limited power, and wisdom, and animal senses, and 
placed upon moral probation. Hence man is a spirit manifest- 
ed, as God is a spirit not manifested. The spirit of man dwells 
in a habitation of clay, and is placed upon probation, having a 
period of trial extending from one to four-score years and over. 

Now man is nature and spirit, — his nature is matter, and 
his spirit a portion of God. Man's spirit was originally finite 
love placed on probation. If God confers upon spirit a ten- 
dency to evil, the object is evidently malevolent, because the 
finite spirit never could correct the impress of creation, unless 
it had creative power greater than the creative power of God. 
Nature is only another name for matter ; another name for 
clay. Man's nature is a mechanical contrivance, or mere mat- 
ter. If God has given a bias to man's mechanical clay con- 
trivance, man could not alter it, unless he could reconstruct 
the defective mechanical contrivance. 

To say that man has a natural bias to evil, is to say that 
he has a peculiar bias of his body, or of the matter of his 
body. There is nothing natural about man but his body, 
the residue is spiritual. A bias of man's body to evil, must 
be a bias that we can look at with the natural eyes, handle, 
and smell, and taste. 

A bias in a moral being, or a bias in man as an intellectual 
being, must be either moral or intellectual. If it be moral, 
then it must be praiseworthy ; for a bias cannot be both moral 
and immoral at the same time. 

If it be intellectual, it must be a thought ; it must develop 
itself in a state of the mind. An action must then be devel- 
oped from the principle of thought ; then an idea must be a 
motive principle. A natural intellectual tendency must exist 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 



69 



in an idea, or motive, or reason ; and this idea, or motive, or 
reason produces actions. That is plain idolatry. 

Men sometimes confound the various mental operations with 
what metaphysicians arbitrarily call distinct faculties. Mod- 
ern philosophers refer the principles of the mind to suggestion ; 
and this they divide into simple and relative. If an idea or 
motive be the result of suggestion, it cannot be the result of 
nature. In the school of Christian philosophy it is not allow- 
able to suppose that the mind has a direct original, natural pow- 
er to create an idea. Ideas come upon the mind from without ; 
they are produced by suggestion. An idea is a perception of 
a pre-existing reason, and may be either good or bad. It be- 
comes a bad reason when it is unsound ; it becomes a good 
reason when it is true. An idea that leads to a good action 
is a sound reason ; an idea that leads to a bad action is an un- 
sound reason. Men are not governed by reasons, but always 
by motives. It seems to be settled in philosophy, that sug- 
gestion of ideas develop conditions of the mind denominated 
faculties. A faculty, then, is the habit of suggestion. There 
is, therefore, no such thing as original faculties. Hence a ten- 
dency cannot be natural. 

A natural tendency is a natural instinct : will theologians 
show the distinction ? It is to be remembered that it is a 
well-settled truth of the Bible, that there is no sin in the in- 
dulgence of the animal instincts. All of our animal passions 
are holy, and their indulgence free from sin, if brought under 
subjection to the laws of God. One of these laws, and the 
greatest, is the law of temperance. Eeligion does not consist 
in extirpating animal passions. That would be to fight 
against God, and to affect to be good and wise above what is 
written. It consists, contrariwise, in their regulation. Now, 
we have under review a natural tendency that it is a sin to in- 
dulge in the slightest degree. Is this consistent '? 

A natural tendency is undoubtedly an infringement of the 



TO 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



freedom of the human choice to the precise extent of the 
strength of the tendency. How can it be said, with any 
happiness of language, that human volition is free, when 
there is a force in human nature as inveterate and immova- 
ble as an original natural bias is ever known to be, which 
force, to the full extent of it, be it ever so small or ever so 
great, ever so transient or ever so permanent, is in hostility 
to free contrary virtuous action ? The proper definition of 
the freedom of the human will is manifestly deranged, if you 
couple with it a natural bias from God, and it would then 
have to be said that the human will was unrestrained only so 
far as it is uncontrolled by a natural tendency. It would seem 
to be the dictate of justice, that every act seemingly sinful, 
which legitimately flows from a natural tendency, cannot be 
taken into the estimate of the guilt of the actor, unless the 
actor can eradicate a natural tendency ; which, if he could 
accomplish, he would be vested with creative powers. 

A natural tendency to evil and malignant astrological in- 
fluence are twin sisters. Both are the offshoots of an oblique 
asceticism. It is just as allowable to " make guilty of our disas- 
ters the sun, the moon, the stars," as to charge them upon what 
Warburton calls " a bias in nature to ill qualities," and what 
Shakspeare calls " the excellent foppery of the world." If it be 
the " admirable evasion of the lecherous to lay their goatish dis- 
positions to the charge of a star," it may be made au equally 
admirable evasion to charge evil dispositions upon nature. ' 

This natural tendency to vice has also other theological 
designations. It is called natural moral perversion. We 
can conceive of infinite holiness, and we can conceive of differ- 
ent degrees of perversion. Lexicographers define perversion 
to mean " turning from right to wrong." The Bible, certainlv, 
teaches us not to regard Satan as an instance of total perver- 
sion, because we are directed not to bring a railing accusation 
against him, and there are depths of wickedness to which he 



CHARACTER OF THE PKIMAL FALL. 



71 



is not permitted to proceed, else he might defeat the benevo- 
lent purposes of God. We suppose Satan is the lowest ex- 
ample of perversion in creation. How much is human per- 
version above satanic perversion ? How much is it below 
infinite purity ? It is a term of great indefiniteness. We 
take the degrees of perversion to be very many between infi- 
nite goodness and satanic wickedness. There was an instance 
of perversion in the case of St. Peter, when St. Paul " with- 
stood him to the face, because he was to be blamed." This 
was an instance of tumino; from the right to wrono*. Does 
original natural perversion go below the case of St. Peter ? 
If so, how far below ? There being degrees in perversion, 
there can be no certainty in this Scriptural doctrine. One theo- 
logian may suppose human perversion to be but a few degrees 
below infinite purity. Another, that it is but a few degrees 
above satanic perversion. Do these theologians agree or 
differ ? Thus different creeds of relative human perversion 
may be strung, like beads upon a string, reaching from the 
perversion of St. Peter to the perversion of Satan. If for no 
other reason, the doctrine is too indefinite to be true. 

In common with all Christian philosophers, we admit the 
immutability of vice and virtue. Vice and virtue do not 
differ from evil and good. We are disposed to acknowledge 
the inherent difficulty of proving the existence of natural ten- 
dencies by metaphysical reasoning. We do not demand that 
primary distinctions of the mind shall be proven, by meta- 
physical reasoning, with any thing like the fullness and accu- 
racy of mathematical demonstration. We are willing to 
admit that there are three supports for the existence of pri- 
mary tendencies, any one of which would be sufficient to prove 
a natural tendency, if it has its undoubted support. We al- 
lude to the word of God, consciousness, and observation. The 
examination of the word of God upon this subject is for the 
present resumed for future investigation. Upon the question 



n 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



of the origin of an admitted tendency, which is the true point 
of debate, the testimony derivable from consciousness and ob- 
servation is paralyzed by an inherent infirmity inseparable 
from the very nature of that testimony. Consciousness and 
observation may give out a very clear and distinct voice as to 
the existence of a tendency ; but if they push their examina- 
tion and inquiry further, and proceed to give us the history 
of the origin and source of it, they go into a country they 
have never explored, and their radical inability becomes ob- 
viously fixed and immovable. Observation and consciousness 
may tell of something they have seen and felt, but they can 
never see nor feel the origin and source of a tendency. With 
respect to the argument to prove that the tendency to evil 
exists in human nature drawn from the word of God, we de- 
sire to remark, that no such origin should be assumed to be 
taught in the Scriptures from disputed and ill-understood 
passages, or from positive declarations, with respect to admit- 
ted tendencies in matured members of the race, in opposition 
to plain deductions of philosophical reasoning ; nor are we 
ill-advised, that even if our view should be supported by the 
Scriptural view, upon fair argument, still, as from affection 
there is a strong disinclination, and from fear a great averse- 
ness, and from sectarian prejudices a bitter opposition, to aban- 
don the throned errors of faith, we shall be happy if we escape 
the not improbable reversionary sentence of the general con- 
demnation. But in defending nature we defend God. 

Upon one occasion, in a conversation with the Jews, Christ 
remarked to them, that " if a man keep my saying, he shall 
never see death." We build our theory upon this saying. 
John the Baptist never saw death, because he kept the saying 
of Christ from his mother's womb. J ohn never died the spir- 
itual death, because he never sinned. Whoever sins, dies as 
Adam died. Hence the second life, and the necessity of the 
second life or birth. 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 73 



When our Saviour taught this doctrine, and could not be 
refuted by the Jews, they accused him of having a devil, and 
for argument, " then took they up stones to cast at him." 

We rely upon observation and consciousness to prove the 
immutability of virtue, or the original aptitude of man to 
recognize its existence. The mutability of moral truth is in- 
consistent with the existence of an infinite first cause. It may 
however be affirmed, that the so adjudged natural tendency 
of the mind of man to recognize the immutable distinctions 
of virtue, cannot be said to be in precise philosophical accuracy, 
so much an original tendency in human nature, as a neces- 
sity growing out of the very existence of immutable virtue. 
Men recognize the existence of virtue and vice by a seeming 
natural proclivity ; and they recognize the existence of the 
objective world from a like tendency, and probably from a 
similar cause. 

An original tendency in the nature of man, claiming its 
origin at a period of time, subsequent to the original creation, 
is a new creation. Is it not ? If Adam's nature was changed 
at the fall, it follows, inevitably, that the race of mankind, 
beginning at the creation, terminated at the fall, and the 
creation of a neiv race began at the restoration. It is to be 
remarked, that the tendency we combat, is a tendency said 
to have received its origin in human nature, as a consequence 
of Adam's transgression. Adam, altered in his nature, is not 
the same original being he was when he sprang from the 
hand of God. This solemn truth cannot be avoided by affirm- 
ing, that his Maker took care in the second creation of human 
nature to preserve the principal points of resemblance to the 
human nature that had characterized his first essay. But we 
must recollect, that the question is not one of similarity but 
of identity of natures. It remains to be proven, and it will 
continue a difficulty to the end of the chapter, that similarity 
of races, however great and striking that similarity may be, 

4 



74 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



is proof of identity of races, if there remains one acknowledged 
cardinal distinction of decided natural character. We can- 
not conceive that there is any greater exhibition, or decided 
exertion of creative energy in the formation of a human being 
in the first instance, out of the dust of the ground, than in the 
modification of the nature of that being in an important ele- 
ment of character. There are some i:>eculiar consequences 
connected with this change of nature not to be disregarded. 
If the posterity of Adam be a new race, with no degree of 
propriety can they be connected with any event that occurred 
anterior to the date of their origin. They can have nothing 
to do with the fall of Adam. It would be just as proper, just 
as rational, and equally as just to make man responsible for 
the revolt of the fallen angels, as for the revolt of a being 
whose nature differed from their own. 

This argument might be pressed to yet more exciting con- 
siderations — the reader cannot fail to perceive them. 

We apprehend a graver consideration yet remains to be 
noticed. 

The Scriptures plainly teach that Christ, the Mediator, took 
upon himself our nature, having been born of the Virgin 
Mary. St. John says, " the Word was made flesh and St. 
Luke, that he " grew in wisdom." " It behooved him" says 
St. Paul, " to be made like unto his brethren, that he might 
be a faithful high-priest to make reconciliation for the sins of 
the people." — Heb. ii. Was he born naturally guilty and 
corrupt, naturally perverted ? We believe it to be so univer- 
sally admitted and so plainly taught in the Bible, that our 
Lord " was made in the likeness of men" and " in fashion as 
a *man," " in the likeness of sinful flesh," possessed of every 
natural quality of man, that we conceive it to be unnecessary 
to do more than announce it as a settled truth of the Bible. 
Now it was stated, that he was without " blemish," and as a 
" lamb without spot." Will any be hardy enough to affirm, 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 



75 



that the nature of our Lord was perverted — turned from right 
to wrong ? If his nature was not corrupt, then is not man's 
nature corrupt. If man's nature is corrupt, then was his. 

But the most unanswerable argument upon this subject 
arises from a consideration of the case of St. John the Bap- 
tist. He is said in the language of Holy Writ, to have Been 
" filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother 's womb." 

The Bible thus furnishes us with an undeniable instance 
in which one of the sons of Adam, born after his nature had 
received its corrupt taint, was filled from the first moment of 
life with the Holy Ghost. He could not have been depraved. 
The reader will observe, that we are under no necessity 
to reply to any argument or any authority supporting the 
doctrine of an inveterate tendency to evil exhibiting itself in 
the human family. We contend that this tendency is the re- 
sult of circumstances connected with the two dispensations 
that have proceeded from the hand of God, and not from 
natural corruption. Much light may be thrown upon this 
question by the examination in the light of Scripture and 
reason, of the condition of Adam's infant posterity, those who 
"slip the coil without waiting its unwind." We purpose 
now first, to show that infant salvation is inconsistent with 
natural corruption, and that if human nature be corrupt, in- 
fant salvation is impossible ; and secondly, that infants are 
born Christians, and hence are pure and holy, and never be- 
come corrupt until debauched by sin. 

We maintain that infants are born holy, and it is to this 
holy birth that our Saviour referred in his conversation with 
Nicodemus, in which he declared to him that it was necessary 
that he should be born again. Having been born once holy, 
and having subsequently died the death of sin, it was neces- 
sary, after having gone into transgression, that he should be 
born holy again, 

1. The doctrine of natural corruption maintains, that in- 



76 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



fants are born in a state of pollution and guilt, and that 
through the atonement of Christ, all that die in infancy are 
infallibly saved. 

Is it necessary that we should refute this absurdity ? The 
conclusion is at war with the premise. If infants are born 
unholy and die in infancy, what prepares their unholy na- 
tures for heaven ? Not the atonement of Christ, for that 
effected what it was designed to effect the moment of its 
offering. But how, and why does this atonement effect this 
result one moment after death, and not effect it one moment 
before death ? What has death to do with natural guilt and 
corruption ? Upon what grounds is the efficacy of the 
Saviour's death made dependent upon natural death ? Is 
there any copartnership between the death of the body and 
the atonement of Jesus Christ ? We are unable to perceive 
how death of the body can have any thing more to do with 
the atonement of Christ than the sickness of the body. Up 
to the period of the last breath of the little sufferer's body, it 
is in the state in which it was born : that is to say, guilty and 
polluted ; and it will continue in that state should it chance 
to recover, but upon the happening of the event of natural 
death, the atonement of Christ cleanses it and infallibly saves 
it. Then death is certainly the efficient cause of its cleansed 
state. This is elevating an effect of sin, as the death of the 
body is stigmatized into an instrument of salvation. Suppose 
infants were translated, what would then become of them ? 
If the atonement of Christ cleanses those infants only that die 
in infancy, what effect does the extreme sickness of the body 
have upon those that live ? 

2. Another reason alleged why infants born unholy are 
saved is, that their eternal perdition is so manifestly in oppo- 
sition to what we conceive the character of God to be, and 
so shocking to the human feelings, that the possibility of their 
destruction cannot be entertained for a moment. If the char- 



CHAEACTEE OF THE PEIMAL FALL. 



77 



acter of God be such that he cannot but save corrupt and 
guilty infants, we cannot see why he may not save corrupt 
and guilty adults. It cannot be because he dislikes guilt and 
corruption. He tolerates, as an amiable weakness, guilt and 
corruption in infants, hence it would not be expecting too 
much of his mercy to tolerate adult guilt and corruption, es- 
pecially when they are natural effects. If he is so tolerant 
of guilt and corruption, he need be under no great particu- 
larity as to particular persons. It would be making an in- 
vidious distinction. But if it be shocking to human feelings 
for the Almighty to destroy guilty and corrupt infants who 
die in infancy, it is certainly much more shocking to human 
feelings to destroy guilty and corrupt adults when his repug- 
nance is not against guilt and corruption. 

We wish the reader to observe, that we are not contending 
against a man of straw. We are combating arguments 
found in standard theological writings. 

It seems to be singular, that we should be authoritatively 
taught to look behind the revealed word of God, to " human 
feelings," in order to learn the principles of salvation. We need 
not point any sensible reader to the danger that arises from 
such a latitudinous method of ascertaining the will of God. 

Another argument used on this subject is, that as God is 
no respecter of persons, and since it is generally admitted 
that some infants are saved, therefore all are saved. 

But who can tell us that some are saved ? In opposition 
to this, it may be safely affirmed, that God is a respecter of 
persons. He draws a distinction between the holy and the 
wicked, and cannot behold sin with the least degree of al- 
lowance. General admissions prove nothing. And besides, 
how are we to get at general admissions ? Nothing proves 
a doctrine of the Bible but the revealed word of God. 

Another reason frequently furnished, why infants born 
guilty and corrupt are saved, is, that provision is made for 



78 



TEUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



the actual justification of all according to certain terms, 
therefore infants are saved, since infants cannot reject. A 
party that fails to comply with the conditions of a grant, 
thereby rejects it. The reason given is a non sequitur. The 
fair reasoning is, that since actual provision is made for the 
justification of all according to certain tenns, and infants 
cannot comply, therefore infants are lost. No consequence is 
more unavoidable. 

The reasons usually assigned why infants are born unholy, 
are, that is, 1st, that it avows the principle, that the stream 
is more perfect than the fountain whence it emanated; 
2d, that it destroys the connection between cause and effect ; 
3d, that it overturns the principle, that the actual guilty, and 
not the innocent, shall be punished ; and 4th, that it strikes 
at the foundation of the doctrine of redemption. It cannot 
be expected that we shall bestow time in exposing the fallacy 
of this string of nonsense. The holiness of infants depends 
upon the question, whether our Saviour redeemed Adam from 
the ruin of the fall or not, before the birth of issue. If his 
redemption occurred before the human family began, then 
the human family being seminally in Adam's loins, shared his 
redemption. The whole human family, then, were redeemed 
from the curse of the violated law. Our Saviour not only re- 
deemed Adam, but granted him another trial of probation 
under new salvation laws. After redemption from the curse 
of the Adamic law, began the mediatorial dispensation. The 
redemption would have been an act void of any practical 
utility, unless a new salvation scheme of laws had been in- 
stituted in order to provide for a future probation : to pro- 
vide for the possible contingency of a future transgression of 
God's moral government. The principal distinction prevail- 
ing between the Adamic and the mediatorial dispensations 
is, that under the first there was no provision for pardon even 
for a first and only transgression or failure of probation, 



CHARACTER OF THE PKIJIAL FALL. 



79 



whereas under the second it is different. Pardon may be 
obtained under the Christian system, if a probationer shall fail 
in his probationary trial many times. The reason that it 
cost our Saviour his subjection to incarnation and an igno- 
minious death, in order to obtain Adam's pardon, is, that 
there was no provision for pardon under the first system of 
human probation, or trial of free agency. No shed blood is 
necessary to procure pardon for sins committed now. It 
costs our Saviour nothing now to obtain the pardon of a sinner, 
because he has procured a provision to be inserted in the 
mediatorial scheme to effectuate that result. All that the 
sinner has to do now, is to comply with the condition of the 
mediatorial provision ; and pardon results in virtue of the ex- 
press provisions of the system. 

The best writers upon the subject of the change wrought 
in the heart of man by the renovating influence of the Holy 
Ghost, insist that it is not a change of nature. In this 
opinion we concur. A change of nature is a new creation. 
But those writers who maintain the doctrine of natural cor- 
ruption, should insist, in order to be consistent, that the new 
birth is a change of nature. We should imagine it to be 
impossible for a corrupt nature to enter heaven. Now, if 
Adam's nature was rendered corrupt by the fall, and his 
children partake of his corruption, then if the Christian re- 
ligion prepares any of Adam's posterity for heaven, it must 
certainly, it would seem, change the corrupt nature in the 
change of the new birth. Regarding the new birth as noth- 
ing more than the procurement of the Christian religion, we 
would suppose that the Christian religion would be of no 
value at all, unless it prepared a soul for heaven. Nothing 
unholy can enter heaven. So says the Bible. If man is 
naturally unholy, then, if nothing unholy can enter heaven, 
certainly the Christian religion must either change the natural 
unholiness of man, or it cannot prepare a soul for heaven. 



80 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



Christian philosophers are not to be permitted to maintain 
two decided contradictory doctrines. They are under a 
necessity either to allow that man is naturally holy, if they 
maintain that the new birth does not change the nature of 
man, or to grant that man is naturally changed in the new 
birth, if they contend that he is born naturally unholy. One 
of these horns of the contradiction they have to take, if they 
allow that nothing unholy can enter into heaven. 

"In Adam all died." How? Seminally. Adam and 
Eve were the heads of a prospective human family placed 
upon probation upon this earth, constructed in order to be 
the scene of this trial. This trial or probation consisted in 
freely choosing either good or evil. If he chose good to the 
close of his trial, he and his issue would be rewarded. If he 
chose evil, he and his issue would be punished. Adam's 
posterity were deeply involved in this trial, because if he 
failed, he would thereby become a sinner, and with a sinner 
God could hold no intercourse ; and this state of sin and this 
condition of non-intercourse he would transmit to his children, 
and the damnation of his long line would be thus forever 
sealed. They were, then, very much interested in the trial. 
Their eternal salvation or eternal damnation were the inter- 
ests at stake in the experiment of probation made with Adam. 
If Adam succeeded, then they would have a chance to suc- 
ceed, as he would transmit his dispensation. If Adam failed, 
he carried along with him the damnation of his entire race, 
for the reasons that without a dispensation there was no 
hope of salvation in their trial, and he becoming a guilty 
and condemned man, his children would also be guilty and 
condemned, and beyond all hope of a change of that state, 
because there was no hope of pardon or reprieve. This most 
disastrous alternative, this sad event, actually occurred. Adam 
failed, became guilty, lost his spiritual life, and was without 
hope and without God in the world. The human family 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 



SI 



were there in him, and shared his condition and his fate. 
Now if issue had been begotten during this state, they would 
have been guilty and corrupt beyond all doubt. But they 
were not begotten until after the Saviour interfered and 
obtained the redemption of Adam, and he had become a 
Christian. Hence in Adam all died, and in Christ all were 
made alive. After Adam was pardoned, he was placed under 
the new dispensation. 

They all died in Adam, and they were all made alive in 
Adam by Christ. The human family were in Adam's loins 
when they died ; they were in his loins when they were 
made alive by Jesus Christ. 

" By the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to 
condemnation/' we were all condemned in Adam, " even so 
by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men 
to justification." What free gift? The free gift of the Me- 
diator, and the mediatorial system. So we see Christ tasted 
death for every man — redeemed every man from the curse of 
the law. Adam's children are hence born holy, and com- 
mence a life of probation under the new mediatorial dispen- 
sation as Christian children, the purchase of the blood of 
Christ, and never cease to be otherwise until they transgress 
God's moral law. Then they die, as Adam died. Then their 
soul ceases to be a living soul. Then they being dead have 
to be born " again." The propriety of the second Christian 
birth is predicated upon the previous Christian death. God 
can have no communion with the soul of a sinner. Hence 
the absence of God from the soul is the death of the soul, in 
a spiritual sense — the only sense in which the soul can die. 
Hence when a young Christian probationer sins, becomes a 
sinner, the grace of God departs from the soul, and that con- 
stitutes its death; and when it is born again the grace of God re- 
turns, and that constitutes its life again. Then it is born again. 

What was it that constituted Adam's spiritual death ? 
4* 



S2 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



The absence of the grace of God. What the cause \ Sin. 
Then when he afterwards obtained the Christian religion, was 
he not born again ? Again made alive ? The second birth 
is a spiritual birth, just as the first was a spiritual birth. The 
Christian religion is nothing more than the grace of God 
obtained according to the system of Christ Jesus. Christ's 
system grants or secures the Christian religion, according to 
its stipulations and conditions. Hence those that are spiritu- 
ally dead may be made spiritually alive by obtaining the 
Christian religion. When they obtain the Christian religion 
they are then born again. 

Christian children are born Christian children in virtue of 
the fact that Christ pardoned and redeemed their original 
progenitor, and bore his sin upon the tree. Men are born 
Christians the second time because, in consequence of having 
violated the moral law of God, and thereby becoming spiritu- 
ally dead, it becomes necessary that they should be made 
spiritually alive again, in order to obey the law of supreme 
love of God. In consequence of the first Christian birth, men 
are not enabled to obey the moral law. It is not a dispensa- 
tion, it is nothing more than a simple pardon for a federal 
sin. They commence life, it is true, as holy and as Christians, 
as Christ's purchase, but they are not introduced into the 
mediatorial system, and have no claim upon its advantages 
until they comply with its condition. There is a great dis- 
tinction between being born holy in consequence of having 
had a federal sin pardoned, and being born into a spiritual 
acquaintance with God according to a new system by com- 
plying with its conditions. 

It was for the human family thus seminally situated, that 
the Son of God bore their griefs and carried their sorrows ; 
that he was wounded for their transgressions, and bruised for 
their iniquities ; that he was smitten, stricken, bruised, chas- 
tised for the sin of the whole world. 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 88 

The conduct of our Saviour with regard to infants, and the 
declarations that are recorded to have been made by him, by 
the four Evangelists, in regard to them, have been interpreted 
to imply many more things than can be fairly deduced from 
them. St. Matthew says the Saviour said, "Suffer little 
children and forbid them not to come unto me, for of such is 
the kingdom of heaven." The other Gospel writers record 
the same declaration. 

In order to understand the import of this language, we are 
to do two things : we are to inquire what object the Saviour 
had on hand, what peculiar business of his office, what pecu- 
liar doctrine of his mission he was attempting to unfold and 
enforce when he made these memorable declarations, and we 
are to understand with precision the meaning of the terms 
used by him. 

We think it will not be denied that the Saviour was then 
engaged as a Preacher of the Gospel, which he was employed 
to introduce into the world, in unfolding the principles and 
explaining the nature and character of the laws of his king- 
dom, and who were the proper subjects, and what were the 
proper qualifications of the subjects meet for it. Our Saviour 
came upon earth to introduce and explain a system of salva- 
tion laws. That is what is meant by preaching the Gospel. 
He came first to explain it and then to introduce it, then to 
put it into operation. The laws of the Gospel system were 
not put into operation until after the death of Christ, because 
it was not until then finished. Salvation according to the 
Gospel was not a possibility until after the shed blood of 
Christ, because its laws did not begin to run until after that 
event. The Jew upon the cross was the first instance on 
record of salvation in virtue of Gospel laws. The Jewish 
thief heads the list. 

Now the kingdom of Christ is nothing more than the reli- 
gion of Christ. The words may be used interchangeably. 



84 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



The Gospel is the key of the kingdom. The Gospel is the key 
of the knowledge of the Christian religion. Our Saviour told 
Pontius Pilate that his kingdom or religion " was not of this 
world." He directs people "first to seek the kingdom of 
God and his or its righteousness," and worldly blessing would 
be afterwards added. Mark this language. He threatened 
the Jews that the " kingdom of God" would be taken from 
them and " given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." 
Mark says Jesus began his mission by " preaching the Gospel 
of the kingdom of God," that is, preaching the key of his 
religion, saying, " the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom is at 
hand." He told the scribe who had answered discreetly, 
" thou art not far from the kingdom of God," not far from 
his religion. He preached the kingdom of God in the syna- 
gogues of Galilee. a Blessed be the poor, for yours is the 
kingdom of God," or the Christian religion. It is difficult 
for the rich to possess it. " No man having put his hand to 
the plough and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God." 
This is true of Christ's religion. He repeatedly declared the 
" kingdom of heaven to be at hand." It was " finished" on 
the cross. " Except a man be born again, he cannot see the 
kingdom of God." Hence it is necessary to be " born again" 
to possess the Christian religion. " The kingdom of God is 
not in word, but in power." The Christian religion does not 
consist in forms, but in spirit ; it is not dead, but alive. Says 
the voice in Revelation, " Now is come salvation and strength 
and the kingdom of God and the power of his Christ." 

In explaining this kingdom he says, with infants in his 
arms, and speaking not of them, but referring to them as 
illustrations employed in Gospel preaching to an auditory of 
breathless hearers, eager to know something of this kingdom, 
that was at hand — he says, " of such is the kingdom of 
heaven." The illustration is not only a beautiful one, but as 
an illustration unusually exact, — much more so than the 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 85 

major portion of his illustrative parables. Those who possess 
the Christian religion, or who have entered into the kingdom, 
are like infants in the guilelessness and innocence of their na- 
ture. They are both free from guilt, both supposed to be 
as harmless as doves, both possessing tender susceptibilities, 
both in a state of utter dependence — the one upon parental, 
the other upon divine love. Both born into their respective 
states, — infants into the natural, and Christians into the 
spiritual world ; both fed upon sincere milk, — infants upon 
the milk of the mother, and Christians upon " the sincere 
milk of the word," — to both all things are new ; both have a 
simplicity, — the one the guileless simplicity of infancy, and 
the other the " simplicity which is in Christ." 

The evidently predominant purpose of the Saviour, in his 
discourses, when he availed himself of the opportunity of 
illustrating his mission by an allusion to the case of infants, 
was to teach the doctrines of his dispensation to his hearers, 
and not to teach any doctrine in respect to them. Standing 
in the midst of a crowded auditory, and discoursing in rela- 
tion to the primary object of the mission he had undertaken, 
the religion and the religious system by mediation, he ob- 
serves that whoever does not receive the kingdom of heaven, 
or the Christian religion, as a little child, shall not be able 
to enter into it, or possess it. 

From this language we may infer, — 

1st. That infants are redeemed and therefore holy, and 
because holy entitled to salvation, and therefore baptized by 
the primitive church, 

2d. That those persons who receive, or enter into the 
kingdom, or who are renovated by the influence of the Holy 
Ghost, are as free from sin as are little children. 

3d. That in order to enter into Christ's spiritual kingdom, 
or to obtain the Christian religion, which entering into the 
kingdom implies, we have to entertain the same dependent 



S6 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

feeling upon God and want of self-power and support that 
we see in infants. 

Precisely then as Adam was posited after Christ redeemed 
him from the curse of the law, and before he had opportu- 
nity or occasion to enter into the enjoyment of the Christian 
religion, or into Christ's heavenly kingdom, were and are, 
his infant posterity. A child of Adam, born free from sin, 
enters upon his moral agency or probationary career, and 
if he disregards or fails to avail himself of the benefit of the 
system of the Christian religion, precisely as Adam would 
have been circumstanced had he disregarded the mediato- 
rial system after he had been forgiven his first offence. A 
child of Adam enters upon a career of moral existence, let 
us suppose in order to illustrate the point, by disregarding 
the advantage derivable from the religious system of Jesus 
Christ. Under what system of laws does he then purpose 
to try the experiment of moral agency with respect to good 
and evil ? Under the laws of natural and moral philoso- 
phy. God has never granted but two dispensations to man, 
the Adamic and the mediatorial. He is then without, or 
aside from, any dispensation, for the original dispensation 
of Adam is withdrawn and the mediatorial is disregarded. 
Hence he is cut off from all hope or opportunity of pro- 
curing the grace of God or the forgiveness of sins, if the 
Christian system be the only system. He cuts himself off 
from the benefits and the restraining agencies of the Chris- 
tian system, and the other is withdrawn. Hence, left to 
the strength of natural and moral laws, he may become a 
very learned man, a very erudite natural philosopher, and 
a very admirable moralist, but he never can acquire the 
favor of God, or ever procure a hope of heaven. Having 
disregarded the only system by which the tendency to evil 
can be effectually counterveiled, and not willing to be re- 
strained by moral laws, he runs into sin and looses his spir- 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 



ST 



itual life, and becomes, in a majority of cases, as we see from 
daily observation, a passive victim of bis own ill-regulated 
passions. Urged to excess by the Arcb-sophist, be proceeds 
from one sin to anotber. His animal desires indulged and 
wbetted, increase and mature. They grow upon wbat they 
feed. A facility as well as a fondness for a second evil 
gratification is acquired by tbe preceding one, and so on in 
increased progression. Tbe tendency to evil tbus originat- 
ing in tbe bosom of tbe sinner, grows witb bis growth and 
strengthens with his strength. A prostitution of moral 
nature, a malignant inveteracy of disposition, a hatred of 
holiness and religion, is thus acquired, which we designate 
as the carnal mind, which is enmity to God and holiness, 
and which infinite power would be as averse from under- 
taking as incompetent to subjugate to the divine authority. 
By a continued compliance with the suggestions of Satan, 
and, among the educated especially, often against the voice 
of moral and natural philosophy, and by a continued indul- 
gence of animal nature, tbey jointly obtain the control and 
management of the operative power of the soul, debauch 
the conscience, darken the perceptions of moral truth, and 
in the end becloud the reason, and the now man-in-iniquity 
becomes the subject of the devil, having ripened into a 
walking leprosy of moral defilement, a curse to himself and 
a curse to all about him. Not only refusing to avail him- 
self of the system of Jesus Christ, but come to despise him 
with a most murderous hate, which gathers colors of strength 
and blackness, and depth of malignancy from the congenial 
hatred of the lost spirit by whom he is controlled, he rushes 
madly upon the thick bosses of Jehovah's buckler, as uncon- 
scious of his ruin, as greedily devouring it. When near the 
edge of the eternal world, he often sups upon the too dis- 
tinct horrors of an anticipated ruin, and under the lash of 
that synteresis of despair tbat creeps over his vital powers, he 



6b 



TRUE THKOKY OF CUKISTIANITY. 



rjresents the picture, for a moment of extorted honesty, of 
the dying incarnation of blank cowardice and hypocrisy. 

But this is not the worse picture in the book of crime. 
The man of education, who knows that his life has been a 
living lie, has tutored his spirit too fearfully in the school of 
vice to allow the cowardice of confession to stain his reputa- 
tion, dies the smooth sophist and the polished scholar, with 
a fatuity and schooled indifference to fear, w T ith not unfre- 
quently a foolborn jest or idiot laugh, the veracious but mel- 
ancholy tell-tales of a ruin that can alone make merry the 
deepest echoes of hell. 

The laws of the mediatorial system of J esus Christ are the 
laws of God ; precisely as the laws of moral philosophy, or 
the laws of nature, are the laws of God. The laws of philos- 
ophy and the laws of nature are not, properly speaking, appli- 
cable, so far as their operation is concerned, to free agents. 

It is a law of God in nature, that an acorn properly depos- 
ited in the bosom of the earth will germinate. It is a law ol 
God in nature, that electricity seeks to establish an equilibrium. 
It is a law of God in nature, that material bodies gravitate 
towards the earth. It is a law of God in the Christian sys- 
tem, that the moral probationer who complies with the con- 
dition of that system shall obtain the grace of God. These 
are all the laws of God, and differ only as the subjects differ 
to which they relate. 

For example, an acorn will germinate in the soil, but the 
acorn cannot choose whether it will remain on the tree or fall 
to the earth ; or if it fall to the earth, whether it will fall in 
the position required by the law of germination. Although 
it is a law of electricity to establish an equilibrium, yet two 
clouds may be differently charged w T ith the fluid. If they 
approach in nearness to each other required by the law, an 
equilibrium will be effected ; but these clouds have no power 
of choice either to approach or to remain apart. The case is 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 89 

different with the subjects of the spiritual laws of God. 
Although it is a law of God in spiritual matters, revealed in 
the Gospel, that the performance of the conditions of the 
Gospel will result in the possession upon the part of the party 
making the performance, of the grace of God ; yet God can- 
not act towards him as he acted towards the acorn and the 
two clouds, because such action upon his part would destroy 
his free agency. Moral probationers can choose whether they 
will perform the condition of the Gospel or not, but having 
performed the condition of the Gospel, they have no choice 
whether they shall have the grace of God or not. That de- 
pends upon the inherent vitality of a fixed law of God. He 
has settled that law, as he has settled the law of electricity, 
or the law of germination. It is not a law of God that moral 
probationers shall comply with the condition of the Gospel. 
He could not enact such a law without destroying free 
agency. He has only passed the law, that if they perform 
the condition of the Gospel, they shall receive the grace of 
God. 

Because the salvation system of Jesus Christ has a condi- 
tion, we must not therefore imagine that it differs in this re- 
gard from other laws ; or that this is a circumstance indica- 
ting any peculiarity distinguishing it from the laws of nature. 
Every law must have a condition. We cannot conceive of 
the possibility of a law of God without a condition. The 
very term, law, implies a condition. It would be in the very 
nature of things utterly impossible for God to institute a sal- 
vation system suitable to probationers without a condition : 
the thing is morally and naturally absurd and impossible. 
If that condition were merely the wave of the hand, it would 
be a condition. 

Birds fly in the air, and fish swim in the water, in ac- 
cordance with the laws of God. The law of flying and the 
law of swimming have each a condition. Now, inasmuch as 



90 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



the blessed Creator did not design to make fish and birds 
free agents, tie took care to accommodate fish and birds to 
the conditions of swimming and flying. But if a person 
wished to make a fish fly, he would have to accommodate it 
to the conditions of flying. A bird can no more live under 
water, a fish can no more fly, than a sinner can serve God 
without complying with the conditions of grace. And a bird 
accommodated to the requirements of flying, can fly with no 
greater certainty : a fish accommodated to the conditions of 
swimming, can swim with no greater certainty than a moral 
probationer can procure the grace of God by complying with 
the condition of grace which Jesus Christ has revealed to us. 
And the reason in these several instances is the same. The 
reason is, because they are all fixed laws, enacted by an un- 
changeable Being of infinite love. 

The freedom of moral agents depends wholly upon the 
question, whether or not they can comply, by natural ability, 
with the condition of the salvation system, of which Jesus 
Christ is the author. The laws of moral philosophy are fixed 
laws. In the moral world, men are necessary agents. God 
only takes pleasure in a spiritual agency in respect to the 
voluntary choice of good or evil. He has never instituted an 
experiment of moral agency in respect to moral or natural 
laws. If it be true, that every law has a necessary condition, 
then the condition of any law, unless there should chance to 
be two, which is the case with some natural laws, is the 
necessarily exclusive condition. The directions contained in 
the system of Jesus Christ, by which the grace of God may 
be obtained by a sinner, is the exclusive condition — and 
hence it is the only condition. The reader will find an expla- 
nation of this condition in the proper place. 

No doctrine is taught with greater directness, greater 
clearness, and with less equivocation or obscurity in the word 
of revelation, than that a sinner cannot worship God accepta- 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 



91 



bly : cannot perform an acceptable act of grace pleasing in 
the sight of God. 

We know that man performed acts of grace ; performed 
works acceptable to God in his innocent condition, before he 
violated the statute of the knowledge of good and evil ; but 
when he violated that law, the dispensation under which he 
had previously been enabled to perform an act of grace was 
withdrawn, because God could hold no kind of intercourse 
witk a sinner. A sinner now cannot j>erform an act of grace, 
but he may cease to be a sinner, and become as holy as 
Adam was ; and it is even supposed that he may become 
more so, since the system of Jesus Christ is thought to be 
better in that respect than the one it displaced. But the pro- 
cess is indirect. Adam procured grace directly from God ; 
we piocure it by mediation. Hence he was naturally able 
to serve God, and we are not. Hence, when a sinner com- 
plies with the condition of the salvation system of Jesus Christ, 
he thereby indirectly procures the grace of God, and by this 
procured grace, he is enabled to serve God acceptably, as 
Adam was enabled to serve him, and with precisely the same 
imparted ability. The only difference is, that this grace came 
in the first instance, directly, and now it comes indirectly. 
But it is the same grace coming from the same God, and 
bestowed upon the same species. 

The great question upon the subject of human depravity, 
or the paralyzed condition of the religious will, and the one 
to which we desire particularly to direct the reader's atten- 
tion, is whether man has a free will, naturally, to worship 
God or not ; or whether, before he is able to worship him 
acceptably, that ability has to be imparted to him. We in- 
tend to advocate in this investigation the doctrine that, 

1. " Our disposition to will, and our power to do, works 
pleasant and acceptable to God is of grace." 

2. That our disposition to will, and our ability to perform 



92 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



the salvation condition of the Gospel, is of our own natural 
original ability. By natural original ability, we mean an 
ability derivable from the original constitution or creation, in 
contradistinction from the casual bestowment of prevenient 
divine assistance. 

3. That in reference to all matters connected or apart from 
the condition of the Christian salvation system, man is gov- 
erned by the strongest motive, and always acts from the last 
determination of the will, whether he worships God or not. 

The reader will observe that we occupy middle ground 
upon these complex questions. We believe man to be a 
necessary agent, only so far modified as he has a natural 
ability to comply with the condition of the Gospel. 

It is contended, that " Original sin standeth not in the fol- 
lowing of Adam, as the Pelagians do vainly talk, but it is 
the corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is 
engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very 
far gone from original righteousness, and of his own nature 
inclined to evil, and that continually." What are we to un- 
derstand by " very far gone from original righteousness ?" 
The expression " very far gone," implies a partial fall. If 
Adam's fall was only very great, some portion of original 
righteousness must inevitably have remained in his nature. 
May it not be affirmed, that if man is " of his own nature in- 
clined to evil, and that continually" that he is not only not 
" very far gone," but gone altogether " from original righteous- 
ness ?" The error of Palaodus was in contending that man- 
kind sustained no injury from the sin of Adam : that man 
is now as capable of obeying God as when he was created : 
that it would have been cruel and absurd to propose to man- 
kind the observance of specific commands under the sanction 
of the severest punishment, unless they were in the possession 
of the necessary faculties and powers to render obedience : 
and " that it is as possible for men, provided they fully em- 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 



93 



ploy the powers and faculties with which they are endued, to 
worship God, as it was for Adam in his first estate." 

Since Pelagius did not deny the divine authority of the 
Christian Scriptures, he should certainly have remembered, 
that if mankind derived no injury from the sin of Adam, and 
were afterwards as capable of obeying God as before the fall, 
the system of J esus Christ is an entirely useless one : not 
only useless, but a cumbersome act of supererogation. A 
slight change in the theory of Pelagius would have ren- 
dered him a great benefactor of his race. Had he con- 
tended that it is very true, that when Adam fell, he could 
not perform an act of grace, — an act of acceptable worship of 
God, — and that he, by that sin, lost every trace and glimmer 
of original righteousness, yet, that when Christ Jesus inter- 
fered in his behalf, it was not only a necessity from which the 
Saviour could not escape, but that he actually did provide a 
condition of grace (distinguishing between the condition and 
the grace), accommodated to Adam's fallen estate, and that 
consequently it is as possible for men, provided they fully 
employ the powers and faculties with which they are endued, 
aided by the advantages of the system, to comply with this 
condition, by which the grace of God may be obtained now 
fully as could have been done before the fall. Pelagius might 
have said very truly, that it would have been both cruel and 
unjust in Jesus Christ to propose to mankind the performance 
of a certain condition under the sanction of rewards and the 
denunciations of severe punishments, which specific condition 
can be performed onjy by the assistance of God's prevenient 
grace, unless he had either bestowed the requisite grace, or 
had provided a condition of grace suited to their despoiled 
condition. The latter is just what Christ Jesus did. 

There is a distinction, here merely alluded to, but after- 
wards more fully elucidated, between obeying God and per- 
forming the condition of the mediatorial system. To obey 



94 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



God, we require grace. We obey Jesus Christ in order to 
obtain this grace. The difference is marked and momentous. 
Obedience, philosophically understood, is a word of full import. 

When we obey God, then it follows of necessity, that we 
obey Jesus Christ, but the reader will observe, that the con- 
verse of the proposition is not invariably or strictly true, 
since we may obey Christ in many important particulars 
without being thereby enabled to obey God. We must 
bear in mind that the object of obeying Christ is to enable 
us to obey God. Christ's system, we are to remember, is a 
mediation, and its object is to effect man beneficially, by 
means of its condition, so that the benefit thereby derived 
may enable him to obey God. In other words, the object 
and design of the Christian system is to impart grace, but 
the object of grace is different. Its object is to enable man 
to obey God. 

Our obedience of Christ may be a partial obedience, but 
not so with our obedience of God, because we only obey 
God when we love him supremely. Is prevenient grace 
necessary in a partial obedience ? The Gospel is a salvation 
provision. It is a conditionary scheme, whose object is to 
restore amity between God and the sinner, by doing some- 
thing for the sinner. Hence, there are many commands in 
the mediatorial code, and but one in duty to God. If 'pre- 
venient grace were necessary to us, in order to enable us to 
obey Christ, would not a salvation system, a conditionary 
provision be necessary to enable us to procure this prevenient 
grace, since grace can only come from Gpd, and since man is 
a sinner ? We would then have necessity for another media- 
tor, and yet another Gospel — one with a condition, whose 
performance would enable us to obtain this prevenient grace, 
in order to enable us to obey Jesus Christ, and so on ad 
infinitum. Gospels would never end. The consequence of 
obeying Christ is specifically that we may obtain grace, that we 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 



95 



may thereby obey God. If so, then it is unphilosophical to say 
that it is, or could possibly bo necessary, that we have grace be- 
fore we perform the condition. The Gospel condition, in this 
event, would forfeit its design. Its performance would no 
longer be a precedent necessity, and hence grace would cease 
to be conditionary, and then the Gospel itself would be utterly 
abrogated. 

We could desire no greater proof of man's natural ability 
to obey Jesus Christ's commands, than the fact that they are 
divine commands. Christ would never have commanded, 
had man been unable to obey. God, now, since the fall, im- 
poses no direct command upon man. He does not direct 
men to obey him directly, because this would defeat the 
Gospel of Christ. He tells men first to obey the mediator, 
and then they will be enabled to obey him, since by obedience 
of Christ we obtain God's grace, and by God's grace we obey 
God. It is this indirect process that gives the divine char- 
acter of a Gospel to the mediatorial system of Jesus Christ. 
In effect God says to a sinner, "It is impossible for you to love 
me supremely" (implied by obeying God), "by any natural 
ability, or have any direct intercourse with me since you are 
deprived of grace and I cannot bestow it upon you, because I 
can have no direct intercourse with a sinner ; but if you will 
obey Jesus Christ, you will thereby obtain grace, and then 
you will be enabled to obey me." 

So we perceive grace is necessary to enable us to obey God, 
but not necessary to enable us to obey Christ, for this latter 
necessity would give rise to a necessity of another condition 
interposing between the sinner and Jesus Christ. 

This question arises again when we come to explain the 
character of the Gospel condition. 

The theology of the gospel Christians of latter times is 
remarkable in one particular, and that is, that it is rife with 
a complaint of a natural inability to perform the condition 



96 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



of the religious system of Jesus Christ. We hear of nothing 
of the sort among the Jews. It stands out as an argument, 
against whose rocky base the surges of opposition may vainly 
and forever beat, that the Jews, liable to the same infirmity 
of will, originating in the same cause, never complained of 
any natural inability to comply with the condition of their 
dispensation. They complained, and complained loudly, of 
a natural inability to obey God, and natural inability to 
avoid evil, and of the necessity of prevenient grace, but never 
of any natural inability to slay the offering upon the sacri- 
ficial altar. They never complained of any natural shrinking 
of the nerves in performing the rite of circumcision. They 
never complained of any natural inability to observe their 
festivals. They never complained of any natural inability to 
enjoy the feast of the Passover. The w T eak point with the 
Jews was the want of the disposition, not the want of natu- 
ral ability. In this respect they contrast favorably with their 
Christian gentile brethren of a certain school. 

If the ability to obey the primal command, which Adam 
undoubtedly possessed, was not natural, but prevenient, then, 
in that event, no reasoning of which we have any knowl- 
edge, can save the character of God from severe damage, as 
the covert cause of his transgression. 

The questions that seem to require investigation here, 
range themselves under the subjects of Faith and the Will, 
and are there fully discussed. 

The reader will find there the following propositions main- 
tained : 

1. That the condition of the Gospel is such, that man has 
a natural ability to obey it. 

2. That man is governed by the last determination of the 
mind. 

3. Then when he is a good being he is governed by the 
wisest determination. 



CHARACTER OF THE PRDIAL FALL. 



97 



4. That he is always governed by the strongest motive, 
whether that motive be the wisest in his view or not. 

Having contended that man has no natural tendency to evil, 
and from God — originating at the fall — we deem it proper 
to advert to two contrary natural tendencies that undoubtedly 
form a part of the moral constitution of the soul. "We mean, 

1. The probationary tendency from God. 

2. The probationary tendency to God. 

But it is necessary to remark, that we call these tendencies 
probationary, because they belong necessarily to every ex- 
periment of moral probation, — belonged to Adam in his in- 
nocent state, and belong to his posterity in every stage of 
their probationary life. Keeping in view that a state of pro- 
bation is a state in which human beings are put upon trial, 
with regard to good and evil, and that evil is not an es- 
sential quality, but merely a temporary enactment, we are 
prepared to understand the cause of these probationary ten- 
dencies. To test obedience, and to make obedience virtue, a 
certain fondness for evil, and a certain fondness for virtue 
must form a province in the human soul. There can be 
nothing essentially attractive in evil : it is only so in appear- 
ance. If God had made evil essentially attractive, such 
legislation would not be characterized by pure benevolence. 
Temptation is the attractiveness of certain objects of desire 
that does not exist in the objects, but in us. To deny, to resist 
the attractiveness of forbidden things, constitutes the success 
and the sum of human probation. In order to constitute 
Adam a probationer, it was necessary that the attractiveness 
of evil should assail him through certain qualities of his 
nature, since evil is non-essential. Hence, in his innocent 
state he must have had a certain desire for evil, a certain 
tendency to partake of the attractive, but forbidden fruit, in 
order to his beino- virtuous regarding the desire for evil, and 
the tendency to evil, as the same thing as the attractiveness 

5 



98 



TRUE THEORY OF CHEISTIANITY. 



of evil. The exhibition of this tendency to evil is then no 
indication of a change of nature consequent upon the original 
transgression. 

The universal voice of mankind has attributed to the 
mother of mankind a curiosity, we do not say it is criminal, 
existing in her in her state of innocency, and which she has 
transmitted, as it is charged, to her daughters. This is 
nothing more than the fondness for forbidden things. Milton 
has represented Adam, while in his innocent state, with great 
fidelity to truth, as very uneasy, in view of this fondness for 
prohibited things, in permitting Eve to be alone in sight of 
the forbidden fruit. 

11 Fair to the eye, inviting to the taste, 
Of virtue to make wise." 

And he represents this fondness as so great that 

" Eve, intent now wholly on her taste, nought else 
Regarded." 

There is a counterpart to this natural probationary ten- 
dency in the attractiveness of virtue, with this distinction in 
favor of virtue, that its institution is not a temporal institu- 
tion. Virtue is not made attractive in order to institute an 
experiment of free moral agency, because it is essentially good 
since it is an emanation from the essential quality of God's 
character. The choice of virtue, therefore, is virtuous because 
it is a choice in respect to the opposite attractiveness of evil, 
but it is virtuous also because it is an essential excellence. The 
happiness of beatified spirits consists in choosing virtue be- 
cause it is essentially good. Hence, it is its own reward. 
Mr. Law, the friend and contemporary of Wesley, says that 
" all we have to fear, and hate, and renounce- — all that we 
have to love, to desire, and to pray for, is all within ourselves. 
No man can be miserable but by falling a sacrifice to his inward 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 99 



passions and tempers ; nor any one nappy but by overcoming 
himself. How ridiculous would a man seem to you who 
should torment himself because the land in America was not 
well tilled ! Now every thing that is not within you, that 
has not its birth and growth in your own life, is at the same 
distance from you, is as foreign to your own happiness 'or 
misery, as our American story. Your life is all that you have, 
and nothing is part of it, or makes any alteration in it, but 
the good or evil that is in the workings of your own life. 
Hence you may see why our Saviour, who, though he had 
all wisdom, and came to be the light of the world, is yet so 
short in his instructions, and gives so small a number of doc- 
trines to mankind, whilst every moral teacher writes volumes 
upon every single virtue." Mr. Law seems to have antici- 
pated the doctrine that every divine precept of virtue con- 
tained in the Scriptures may be resolved into, and fully included 
in the one law of supreme voluntary love of God. 

2d. The probationary tendency to God is as evidently in 
the nature of man as is its counterpart. The system of the 
Christian religion having become divine laws after the crea- 
tion of the nature of man, there can by possibility be no natu- 
ral tendency to Jesus Christ, but opposition rather. It is a 
new system in reference to human nature. Human nature 
was constructed with reference to direct, not indirect inter- 
course with God. Hence man is more inclined to be a Deist 
than a Christian, and the reason is, that Adam was created a 
Deist. And for the same reason there can be no natural 
tendency from the system of Christ, because, the system 
was enacted after the creation of human nature. In order 
to the existence of a natural tendency from the system of 
J esus Christ, it would have become necessary for God to alter 
the nature of man after his creation. This would have been 
a new creation. But the tendency in the nature of man 
towards God exists, because Adam was created a Deist, and 



100 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



early trained in the habit of direct intercourse with God. 
This tendency, then, is not more distinct in Christian than in 
heathen lands. It was the source of the action and the cause 
of the success of Mohammed. All that is necessary in order 
to understand this position is, to contemplate the state and 
condition of Adam after the fall, and before the system of 
Jesus Christ was applied to him. Are we not constrained by 
every view of man as a reasoning being, to conclude that he 
was inclined to renew the former relationship) of amity with 
God that had been so delightful, rather than to continue in a 
state of estrangement ? Did his bosom heave with regret ? 
Did remorse seize him ? Did the bitter sense of the stupen- 
dous folly of his ingratitude disturb the placidity of a reme- 
diless despair '? If so, the origin of these remorseful feeling's 
was an inclination to God. The most delightful touches of 
Milton's immortal work may be traced to the truth of the 
existence of this theology. Had the Christian system never 
been applied to Adam, he would have continued theoretically 
a sound divine to the close of his life. In his fallen estate he 
never doubted of God's existence, nor of the benevolent attri- 
butes of his character, nor of his purity. He might have be- 
come as wise a philosopher and as great a logician as Gibbon, 
Hume, or Voltaire, three of his infidel children. But he never 
could have become a good, a religious man. His intellec- 
tual faculties were not injured. He could reason as before. 
A bias towards God is not inconsistent, necessarily, with a 
state of natural inability to love and serve God acceptably. 
A man may have a bias towards God, and may manifest that 
desire by the most praiseworthy acts of benevolence and a 
strict conformity of his conduct to the requirements of moral 
philosophy, and yet he will never have any thing else than 
an unprofitable and unsuccessful bias. He never can become 
holy. He never can love God with a supreme voluntary affec- 
tion. There is only one way to do that thing. 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 



101 



Whenever and wherever the effort may be made by men to 
acquire an ability to love God with supreme affection, -which 
necessarily implies a state of personal holiness, by the aid and 
exercise of the finest intelligence and the deepest lore, it will 
be just as certain to fail as if the trial were made by the most 
ignorant idolater if the aid of the divine laws of Jesus Christ's 
system is rejected. Were they to succeed, it would prove his 
system to be a cheat. Men, all the world over, are seeking to 
find God ; or what is the same thing, they are seeking to find 
good or happiness. Stephen Girard was a type of a large 
class. He only misdirected his efforts. He was an idolater 
because he made the creature the supreme good of his search. 
The desire of happiness is the desire of God. Unhappiness 
is the absence of God, because God is goodness and happiness. 
There being no goodness or happiness aside from God, of 
course there can be no quietude of soul derivable from a cre- 
ated good. A created good is a counterfeit good. 

If God be the only essential good, and if it be proper to 
seek it in God only, then those that seek it in gold are, phi- 
losophically, as true idolaters as pagans who seek good in the 
worship of pagan gods. The object of human worship is to 
attain the true good. This worship is commendable when 
truly directed; and it is idolatry when obliquely directed, 
whether in the worship of the created things of God, or in 
false or created gods. The heathen makes a god of created 
things ; hence, those who seek for good or God in created 
things, such, for example, as gold or pleasure, imitate truly 
and fully the idolatry of the heathen. While gold is regarded 
as a means, we look beyond it for the good of it. But when 
we regard it as intrinsically good, then it is in principle the 
worship of a false god. So that we may say, that all money- 
lovers, who love money for money's sake, are influenced by an 
occult tendency to God, since God is the only good. They 
are only mistaken in the character of the object of their 



102 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



search. All men desire good, or God ; but then they are un- 
willing to seek him through the system of Jesus Christ. 
Hence, we conclude that there is a strong natural tendency in 
man towards God ; hence it is that it is so benevolent a work 
to direct mankind to the system of Jesus Christ, as that is 
the only and exclusive pathway. 

Happiness is a divine effect. Hence, as an effect, it must 
certainly be caused by a divine cause. Now, a seeming or a 
presumed happiness, or supposed effect, is no happiness at all, 
and no true effect, since it is not a divine effect, but a presump- 
tion. Hence, nothing can constitute happiness and be truly 
good, that does not emanate, as a substantive effect, from a 
divine cause. Hence, the divine cause must of necessity, 
upon strictly philosophical grounds, be the only source of the 
true good, or happiness. Hence, also, any supposed or pre- 
sumed happiness, adjudged to originate in, or emanate from, 
any other cause than that of the true and only cause, must 
necessarily be a mere moral delusion. It must be an abstrac- 
tion, and not a real and substantial effect. 

If we are commanded to seek for happiness, or for the true 
good in the only first and true cause, and if such search be 
the worship of the only first and true original cause called God, 
then it follows, as an irresistible inference, that it is plain idol- 
atry to seek or search for the true good, or happiness, as exist- 
ing in secondary causes ; and that it is also equally plain, that 
the search for good or happiness in a secondary cause, is the 
search for God. Hence, it is a tendency towards God ; it is 
a tendency ill directed. 

All sub-causes, we are to remember, necessarily emanate 
from the first original cause, and are hence but secondary 
causes. In other words, God is the source, or cause, or 
motive of all secondary active principles, or sub-causes, or 
motives. 

Hence, there can be no happiness existing in secondary 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL, 



103 



causes, only as they point to the first cause as the origin of 
the happiness. Hence, it is idolatry to arrest our worship at 
the altar of a sub-cause, or a created thing, instead of extend- 
ing it through and beyond the -created cause of effects, to the 
uncreated or original cause of effects. 

Happiness being an effect, it cannot originate in created 
things ; it must originate in the first cause. 

Created things can undoubtedly convey happiness. But 
how ? By so using them as that they shall draw happiness 
from the original cause of created things, as well as of created 
happiness. Created things cannot cause happiness but as sec- 
ondary causes. Hence, they can never be the origin or source 
of happiness ; they may be the channel of happiness ; but 
whether the happiness thus acquired, or thus transmitted, be 
a true or a counterfeit happiness, depends upon the question, 
whether the original cause that lies beyond the channel con- 
veys the happiness or not. This locates the cause of all hap- 
piness necessarily in the first and only original cause. 

A seeming happiness, which is a counterfeit happiness, 
may appear to originate in a created thing. But this seeming 
or presumed quality is a counterfeit, and not a divine effect. 
It is, as we have said, a moral phantasm. Hence, it follows 
conclusively, that • all search for happiness, whether in gold 
and pleasure, or other created things or sub-causes, as made 
by learned men of Christian lands, or whether in pagan gods, 
as made by unlearned men of heathen lands, is a search after 
God, since he is the first and only original cause of every true 
or divine effect ; and is in both cases idolatry, and equally a 
blind superstition, or worship of a false god. In respect to 
the blind idolatry of the two, there is not an iota of difference. 
The principles that underlie both developments are the same, 
and in both cases are the offspring of a blind or mistaken ten- 
dency or search of God, the only original cause of divine 
effects. 



104 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



The midnight sigh of the world-lover or the pleasure- 
seeker, that conscious vacuity of moral peace that disturbs 
like a bad ghost, the happiest dreams of irreligious men, 
that spiritual poverty that darkens the enjoyment of earth's 
brightest possessions, is a tendency to God. An indescrib- 
able longing, a sense of moral deficiency, moral appetites 
which the pleasures of the world can never satisfy, those 
gloomy forebodings that are the vultures of the lonely and 
unquiet hours of him in whose soul Christ is not formed 
the hope of glory, are so many eloquent tongues that tell of 
a tendency towards God. This occult quality of all people, 
all nations, tongues, and tribes, this desire for moral relief, 
this spiritual yearning, this passion for something to worship, 
something to love, something to quiet the dismal presage- 
ment of guilty immortal spirits, this parent of all super- 
stition and idolatry, this interest in the dread arcana of the 
invisible world, is a tendency towards God. Cast your eye 
over the world. Ponder over the one lesson of history. 
"What is the first desire of the general heart of humanity ? 
What is the object of the strife, the toil, the search of the 
general heart, but the search after the true good ? False sys- 
tems of worship are eloquent of the true system. Counter- 
feit money is proof of the value of the true. 

How else are we to account for the wierd attractiveness of 
metempsychosis and metamorphosis, operating upon all grades 
of human beings below Christians, from the most ignorant, - 
prone and prostrate before wood and stone, to the elite of the 
superstitious, but learned of pagan lands ? Study the history 
of Johnson's interest in the Cock-Lane Ghost. Upon what 
other rational hypothesis can we account for the general desire 
of Adam's degenerate and benighted children, fondly drivel- 
ling, doting, dreaming for a lost power of the soul, who in 
blind fatuity adopt Nature as God — the children of a sickly 
dream, who regard wealth as God, pleasure as God, fame as 



CHARACTER OF THE PRIMAL FALL. 105 

God, and who seek in these, and in beasts, and birds, and 
plants, and stones, and loathsome animals, and the products 
of human skill, in pictures and images, and saints and ceremo- 
nies, some imagined quality of the only essential good or God ? 

It has been said by a great man* of our age — " I believe 
man everywhere is more or less a religious being : that is to 
say, in all countries and in all times he feels the tie which 
connects him with an invisible power." 

This desire for God is observable in the dark idolatry of 
Egypt, as well as in the more refined mythology of Greece. 
It is observed among the Chaldeans, who with equal super- 
stition and blindness deduce a religion from a supposed pri- 
mogenial egg, and read their destiny in the beautiful stars ; 
as well as seen in the less inventive genius of the coarser 
Romans, that revelled in a borrowed superstition. 

To what other source are we to attribute the moral systems 
of the elegant Zeno and the polished Epicurus — to indulge 
in the language of the polite literature of the day — who, in 
the groves and gardens of voluptuous Athens, toiled at the 
problem of the chief good ; sought to find out the secrets of 
the invisible world, and pondered over the issues of life ? Look 
at the labors of Lacydus and Arcesilaus, the latter of whom, 
wearied with the profitless toil after the knowledge of the exist- 
ence or being of God, or the foundation of morals, ran beyond 
skepticism itself, in denying the testimony of the senses, by 
maintaining that the truly wise can maintain nothing, — the 
great prototype of the grown children of the Priestley school. 
To the same origin do we trace the unity of Pythagoras, the 
homomeria of Anaxagoras, and the atom theory of Democri- 
tm — that happiness did not consist in animal gratification, 
as apart from the unity of atoms, but sprung from the "har- 
mony of the soul with itself" in atomic combination of 



* Daniel "Webster. 
5* 



106 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



unity ; and the theory of Democritus, of the infinite number 
of invisible and indivisible atoms which only differed in 
form and substance. With this religious jargon, this pious 
pantomimic folly, Athens was a babel, when the august 
voice of the apostle Paul, the accredited agent of the truth, 
fell portentous upon the city, her teachers, and their systems. 
The truth lives, but where are they ? Echo answers, Where ? 
" Sol occubuit et nox secuta est." 



CHAPTER III. 



FAITH. 

In which it is shown that Faith is consistent with 
Works, or a Diversity of Creeds with Unity of the 
Faith. 

In unfolding any doctrine of the Bible there are certain 
general principles within the limits of which we should con- 
fine our investigations. In the first place, in explaining any 
doctrine of the Gospel, which it was the design of its author, 
and a necessity of the doctrine, that it should be fully 
understood, we are to avoid complexity. Whatever doctrine, 
therefore, of this character, is complex and involved, is prima 
facie untrue. There are mysteries in the Gospel, but they 
are mysteries, because either we do not understand them, or 
it was not designed that we should understand them. So 
soon as the mind of man understands any thing it ceases to be 
mysterious. A thing cannot be understood and be mysterious 
at the same time. Now if a doctrine of the Gospel, which it 
was designed we should comprehend, involves any mystery 
in the explanation of it, the mystery is a sure proof of the 
falsity of the explanation, to the extent of the mystery. In 
the second place, it is the dictate of wisdom to explain any 
disputed or difficult doctrine so as to make it entirely consist- 
ent with those doctrines that are neither disputed nor difficult. 
If any doctrine be explained so as to be opposed to other 
plain doctrines, then the points of conflict in the explanation 
are sure proof of its falsity. In the third place, it should be 



108 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



observed that the Gospel is only a phase, or a branch, or a 
distinguished manifestation of the mediatorial system. The 
salvation system of Jesus Christ began with the fall of 
Adam. Hence the condition of the system must be the 
same under every manifestation of the system. Hence, if 
we give an explanation of the condition of grace, under 
the Gospel dispensation of the mediatorial system, not 
equally applicable to every other dispensation of the me- 
diatorial system, we may be confident the explanation is 
untrue. 

In the fourth place, we must not permit ourselves to be 
deluded by words. Words are signs of ideas. Of them- 
selves they are mere abstractions. The condition of Salva- 
tion is called Faith, but as faith is a word implying many 
things, it is better to disregard the word, and to confine our 
investigation to the thing signified. The thing signified, in 
this connection, by the symbol faith, is the condition of grace, 
or the condition of the Christian system. Therefore if, in 
explaining faith, we cannot substitute this explained condi- 
dition of salvation for the term faith, wherever it may occur 
in the Scriptures, we may certainly conclude the explanation 
to be false. 

In the fifth place, we are to remember that God has dis- 
connected himself as much from the condition of the system 
as he has from the system itself. When he established the sys- 
tem he granted the condition, and hence the condition of the 
system is as unchangeably fixed as the system itself. Hence 
the condition of the system is a law of the system, operating 
like any and every other law of God, when it is complied 
with, by its own inherent vitality, communicated to it when 
God granted the mediatorial dispensation. Hence it is a 
law of God. Hence it is the will of God : hence the pur- 
pose of God. It is a well-settled doctrine of the Gospel, that 
since the fall man cannot naturally serve God acceptably. 



FAITH. 



109 



The salvation of the soul " is not of him that willeth, nor of 
him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy" 

The salvation of the soul is a very different thing, however, 
from the method by which that salvation may be procured ; 
and because a man cannot naturally procure the grace of God, 
it does not therefore follow that he cannot comply with 'the 
direction of the law of grace ; cannot be saved according to 
the will, or purpose, or law of God ; for the specific necessity 
of the Gospel grew out of the fact, that man cannot naturally 
do what can be effected by the aid of the condition of the 
system. It is a general and cardinal principle, applicable to 
all human probationers, that they cannot love God supremely 
without the assistance of prevenient grace. Hence it is, that 
we have systems of grace. Adam's first dispensation was a 
system of grace ; he was a probationer under it. When he 
sinned, his dispensation ceased. Another dispensation, or 
new revealed will of God, was then introduced to effectuate 
the same thing for Adam's children that had been effected for 
Adam himself, under his dispensation — i. e., to procure the 
grace of God. The grace that a probationer now acquires, in 
virtue of Christ Jesus' system, is the same motive power, the 
same cause of action, the same quality of soul that Adam 
obtained under his system. There is but one God, one grace, 
or righteousness, or mercy, emanating from the one God. 
The same trial of moral agency is continued with the same 
race, only under a different system or revealed will of God. 
It is the grace of God that saves us ; but the question on 
hand is, how are men to procure that grace ; or, in other 
words, what is the condition of Christ Jesus' system, or what 
is God's will in regard to the conditional law of the Chris- 
tian religion ? We have now to define that condition within 
the limits of these general principles. 

Now let us see how we have to define the condition of the 
Christian system. 



no 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



We have to define a condition applicable to moral proba- 
tioners without grace, by an explanation that is not complex 
and involved ; that is consistent with the indisputable doctrine 
of man's natural inability to perform an act of grace ; that is not 
confined to the Gospel dispensation, but is common to every sal- 
vation dispensation by mediation ; that is susceptible of being 
substituted for the term faith, when it implies the condition of 
grace, wherever it occurs in the Bible ; that is a law of God op- 
erating by its own intrinsic vitality, as every other law of God 
operates ; and that does not possess any meritorious efficacy 
to save the soul, that being only done by God's grace. 

Faith, then, as the condition of grace, is the obedience of 
the volition to the commands of Jesus Christ, the mediator, as 
a rule of action. This definition comes within the limits of 
the general j)rinciples we have just specified. It also suits 
every case mentioned in the Bible, where the condition of 
grace is alluded to. 

Or, it is the choice of the will of Jesus Christ, in preference 
to our own will. 

Or, it is the voluntary surrender of preferred human actions, 
and the free choice of prescribed divine actions. 

Or, it is the declaration in action of the chosen mediatorial 
will. 

Or, it is the love of God declared in active obedience of 
Christ. 

It is a peculiarity of the mediatorial dispensation that the 
condition of salvation is not the procuring cause of salvation. 
We are saved by the grace of God. How is this ? How can 
a condition of salvation, deriving none of its merit from the 
doer, be the condition of salvation, which salvation is not 
made to depend in the remotest degree upon this condition 
as its procuring meritorious cause ? The question seems to 
contemplate a self-contradictory proposition. But it is not 
so, nor will it appear to be so upon investigation. 



FAITH. 



ill 



Let us restate the proposition. 

The system of Jesus Christ, by which salvation may be 
procured from God, has a condition called faith, whose per- 
formance imparts no kind of merit in the doer of it to justify 
him in the sight of God, whose performance is nevertheless 
indispensable to salvation; and yet the moral probationer, 
who performs the condition, has no right to avail himself of 
the merit of having performed the condition in order to ob- 
tain justification, but is saved upon the performance of the 
condition upon wholly a foreign and distinct ground of justi- 
fication. It is explained in this way : 

The mediatorial plan of salvation procured by Jesus Christ 
was originally introduced for the benefit, and to suit the cir- 
cumstances of fallen sinful beings. Such is the relation be- 
tween the moral character of God and a sinful being, that 
God can, under no conceivable state of circumstances, estab- 
lish a legal system of direct gracious intercourse with him, nor 
can a creature thus unholy do any thing that will be possessed 
of merit sufficient to secure justification. 

With regard to this proposition, the religious world is gen- 
erally agreed. 

It therefore follows, that Christ Jesus himself, if the first 
proposition be true, could not have instituted a salvation dis- 
pensation, containing a condition dependent upon the merito- 
rious efficacy of any acts it was competent for man to per- 
form, by which justification of the sinner might be procured. 
Another proposition equally plain is, that if the character of 
God be as repugnant to sin as it is claimed to be, and if a 
sinner cannot perform acts of merit sufficient to secure the 
favor of God, then Christ Jesus could accommodate no salva- 
tion dispensation to suit the exigency, unless he procured one 
whose condition, when performed by the sinner, should pos- 
sess an imparted merit sufficient to reconcile the antagonist 
parties, and restore a state of amity. 



112 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



Now, the rationale of faith, as the condition of grace, we 
take to be this — 

All the covenants affecting the salvation of the human 
family, federatively represented in the persons of the original 
pair, are to be understood as having taken place between God — 
who cannot, consistently with the preservation of the attri- 
butes of his character as a holy being, hold any direct inter- 
course with a sinner — and some august being, of sufficient 
holiness and of sufficient influence, capable of furnishing con- 
siderations and manifesting equivalents of sufficient merit to 
procure for sinful beings, incapable of performing meritorious 
acts, a dispensation of mercy, a covenant of grace, or a gospel 
of salvation, containing a condition abstractly meritorious in 
virtue of the blood of Christ, which a sinner can perform, 
and whose performance shall procure the forgiveness of sin, 
and the restoration of the sinner to the favor of God, in conse- 
quence of the merits of the procurer of this condition. 

We affirm upon the strength of the testimony of the Scrip- 
tures, that the Lord J esus Christ, coeval with the Father, hav- 
ing the qualities necessary to meet the emergency that had 
overtaken the whole human family, seminally represented and 
involved in ruin by the guilty pair, in the federal fall, as man's 
divine days-man and redeemer, procured from the eternal 
Father, at a price agreed between them, and particularly set 
forth, and historically described in the Scriptures, certain cov- 
enants of mercy, or a dispensation of grace, or a conceded will- 
of God, containing a condition called Faith, eminently prac- 
tical in the particulars that man has ability to perform it, 
when he cannot perform an act of grace, and clothed, when 
performed, with an inherent but derived efficacy to procure the 
grace of God. Hence, it is entirely consistent to say, as the 
Scriptures say repeatedly, that we are saved by faith, are saved 
by the blood of Christ, and are saved by grace. 

We are saved by faith, because faith has a merit derived 



FAITH. 



113 



from the blood of Christ ; and we are saved by the blood of 
Christ because it has merit to procure the grace of God, which 
is salvation, or safety ; and we are saved by the grace of God, 
because the grace of God does not differ from God himse]f. 
Without performing the condition called faith, we could not 
receive any benefit from the merits of Christ ; and without 
the merits of Christ, we could not procure the grace of God ; 
and without the grace of God we would have no salvation. 

" Justification by faith alone" is an inaccurate term, un- 
scriptural and unphilosophical. We are justified by the 
grace of God. " By grace are ye saved" says St. Paul, in 
his treatise upon the Gospel. 

If a man undertakes to perform the condition called faith, 
his obedience will be of no service to him unless it amounts 
to trust exclusively in the blood of Christ — an el em exit com- 
prehended in the submission of the will ; and exclusive trust 
in the blood of Christ will do him no good, unless he pro- 
cure the grace of God, since it is the grace of God at last 
that constitutes salvation. 

We are saved by works also in the same sense. If a man 
renders obedience to the commands of Jesus Christ, trusting 
exclusively to the merits of Christ, and thereby procures the 
grace of God, he may be said to be saved by his works. 

We regard faith the condition of grace, as the adoption of 
the commands of Jesus Christ, the mediator, as the rule of 
action. Faith is hence applicable to the volition and not to 
the mind. It is the will of man that is on trial. The only 
voluntary principle in man is his will. The condition of 
grace k addressed to a free agent in the province of his free- 
dom, and hence an action is the decision of the will ; and 
the submission of the will in prescribed actions is the condi- 
tion of salvation. We think we will be able to make this defi- 
nition good beyond ail dispute. In understanding the sub- 
ject of the condition of grace, we must not confound what 



114 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



God requires of his creatures and what Jesus Christ requires, 
or what is the same thing, what is required in the condition 
of the Gospel, in order to enable a sinner to perform what 
God requires. God has and can have but one command, 
and that is supreme voluntary love. That is the only law 
of voluntary probation. In order to enable a probationer 
to obey this law, he must be in the possession of a motive 
power, called the grace or love of God. A probationer 
who has this motive j)rinciple, this grace, this love, in suffi- 
cient strength, as Adam had in his state of primeval in- 
nocency, can readily obey the great command of God of 
supreme voluntary love of the essence of good, God him- 
self, which of course includes the necessary absence of all 
sin. JS T ow Christ Jesus, in his system, requires many things 
of the sinner, beginning with the simplest commands and 
ending in the command of God of supreme love of God. 
Hence the condition of Christ runs into the one command of 
God. These observations are made with the view of antici- 
pating an objection that may without it be alleged against 
the explanation we have given of faith. 

If faith, as the condition of salvation, requires perfect obe- 
dience to God, and looks to the entire avoidance of sin, it is, it 
would seem, just as difficult for a sinner incapable of perform- 
ing an act of grace by natural ability to obey the commands 
of Jesus Christ, as to obey the command of God. But a dis- 
tinction here rises to view that we must carefully consider. 
Christ, in the condition of the Gospel, requires the honest 
exercise of the volition with all the powers with which man 
is endued. 

Christ requires nothing that man is not able to perform. 
We must not confound man's ability with man's disposition. 
The human will is paralyzed in the fall. Man's ability to obey 
the commands of Jesus Christ does notarise from any natural 
ability, philosophically speaking; but the ability to obey 



FAITH. 



115 



Christ arises from the fact that Christ's commands are divine 
commands ; that is to say, they are the laws of God delivered 
to free agents unwilling to obey them. It is for this reason 
that Christ's commands are so diversified. There are some 
commands that are of easy obedience. 

Now, we must not lose sight of the mediatorial character 
of the system. It is to teach unwilling men to be willing to 
love God by voluntary action. Hence, the system leads them 
by degrees to God. The difficulty in human nature that Je- 
sus Christ has to encounter and overcome is, man's unwilling- 
ness to obey God — because God is infinite purity, and man is 
a sinner. Man cannot naturally will to love God. In propor- 
tion, then, as we obey Christ, do we obtain grace. So, that 
every act of obedience of Christ is a step towards God. The 
first steps are the easiest ; not because, in reality, they are any 
easier, but because man is more easily made trilling to obey 
them. But the ability to obey each and all of the commands 
of Christ is the same. Every divine command is a divine 
motive. 

We are to remember that we can obey Christ very easily 
when we have the grace of God ; but the difficulty is, how to 
obey him when we are devoid of grace — when we are sinners. 

A novitiate is, we may say, under a necessity, after he be- 
gins his Christian pilgrimage, to fall a victim frequently to the 
want of the sufficient strength of the developing and growing- 
motive principle, or grace, or love, and as a consequence, often 
commits sins ; but if he is faithful and persevering, that lia- 
bility will give way in the process of the growth of the inner 
principle, until he becomes a man in Israel, capable of 
entire submission, or entire personal holiness, or supreme 
love of God. Regarding God as love, and love as the motive 
principle of creation, and the cause of all action, we are then 
to regard grace, and holiness, and righteousness, and mercy, 
and love, as implying the same thing. 



116 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



The reader will excuse us if we border upon a too tedious 
repetition. We desire to be fully understood. 

The system of Christ is a scheme of laws by which a sinner 
may procure the Christian religion, or grace, which procures 
salvation. 

Hence, the very first effort of the will of a probationer 
who is a sinner, to comply with the condition, is the action 
of a sinner assisted by prevenient necessary grace, or by the 
motive inherent in every divine command, and is necessa- 
rily a sinful action, for the plain reason that a sinner de- 
prived of, but assisted by grace, or the motive principle by 
which a good action can be produced, can perform none 
other than an evil action. We must bear in mind that the 
evil of an action is not any thing existing in the action, but 
in the motive by which the probationer is instigated. The 
motive influencing the sinner to commence a life of obedi- 
ence to Jesus Christ, in the first instance, is a purely selfish 
motive. Hence, an impure motive. This necessarily results 
from the fact that he is a sinful being. If a sinner could be 
influenced by a pure motive in the first instance, he would 
be influenced by the grace of God, and there would be no 
use in his complying with the condition of Christ Jesus' 
system in order to obtain the grace of God, since he would 
be possessed of it anterior to the performance. Hence the 
sinner has a derived ability to obey the salvation condition 
of the Gospel. One of the commands of Christ is that men 
shall pray to God. Wow prayer is a mere mechanical atti- 
tude of the body, and the pronunciation of certain petitions. 
The vilest sinner can bring his body into the proper attitude, 
and he can pronounce the proper petitions, and he can do this 
with what sincerity he may naturally possess. The Gospel 
guarantees to the sinner this power of motive. Now this sin- 
ful probationer is endeavoring to procure the grace of God ac- 
cording to the salvation system of Jesus Christ ; he is obeying 



FAITH. 



117 



Christ, But the system of the Saviour requires this siuner to 
love God with a supreme voluntary affection. Can he obey 
this law ? Certainly he cannot by primary action. He has 
first to become a Christian. He must first enter into the 
kingdom of Christ. The sinful probationer begins as a sinner 
to comply with the condition of the Gospel, and if the effort 
be of sufficient fidelity, he becomes a Christian, by ceasing to 
be a sinner, being by progression born into the kingdom of 
God. But does the condition then cease ? The condition 
never finishes its office, but its office is necessarily accom- 
plished when a sinner is able to love God with a supreme 
voluntary love, and this implies the entire cessation of all 
contrary love of evil. 

The argument upon the subject of the condition of Christ 
J esus' system of procuring the love of God, is twofold. 

1st. There is a scriptural argument. 

2d. There is a metaphysical, philosophical argument. 

We proceed to the examination of the scriptural argument, 
by first affirming, that the obedience or submission of the 
volition to the commands of Jesus Christ as mediator, is a 
very different thing from those consequent actions that result 
from the submission of the volition. 

By volition, we mean that principle in man that produces 
an action. 

The first instance in the Scriptures, to which we propose to. 
apply our explanation, is that of St. Peter walking upon the 
waves of Galilee. No example can be fairer. 

When our Saviour reproached Peter for a want of faith, 
he is to be understood as reproaching him for the want of the 
principle of action, the germ of obedience, the motive of 
action ; or in other words, the submission of his will to the 
divine will. Nothing in man can produce an action but the 
will. Had he submitted his will to the command of Christ, 
he would have walked on the water ; because there is a power. 



US 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



a vitality, a motive in Christ's will : he would have obeyed 
the command. Obedient action would have resulted neces- 
sarily from the obedient will, if he who gave the command 
were God. When God speaks, it is a command, and when 
God gives a command, it is a law of God, and the law of God 
is the will of God. When Christ directed Peter to walk on 
the water, it became a law of God that he should be able to 
obey the command. With this law of God in operation, all 
that Peter had to do was simply to obey the command ; and 
if he did not obey the command, it was only because he did 
no I, choose to obey it. The reason why he did not obey, was 
not because he could not. The command was given, God 
had fixed the law, and Peter was called upon to obey the di- 
vine law. Why did he not obey it ? It could not have arisen 
from any inability or any deficiency in the law. It origin- 
ated from want of will in Peter. All he had to do, was to 
briDg himself under the operation of the law or will of God. 
Why did he not do it ? The scriptural account says, he was 
" afraid," — that he began to sink " because he was afraid." 
What is fear ? It is deficient will. It is deficient resolution. 
It is weakness of purpose. It is want of confidence in the 
will of Christ. It is just as easy for a moral probationer to 
obey a command of Jesus Christ, as it is for man to make a 
material object obey the command of God. Had Peter been 
directed to throw a ball of lead into the air, in order that it 
might obey God's law of gravitation, he would have had no 
difficulty, because he would have had no infirmity of will. If 
Peter had been directed to walk on land according to God's 
law or will, he would have had no difficulty, because he would 
have had no infirmity of will. But when Christ directed him 
to walk on the water, the command became a law, like the 
law of walking ; and it was just as easy for Peter to walk on 
the water as to walk on the land, as he would be doino- both 
by precisely the same power. Walking on the water would 



FAITH. 



119 



have been precisely analogous to walking on land, because 
it is the law of God that gives the ability in each case. Sup- 
pose Peter had been directed to walk on the land, and his 
will to walk were wanting, from any cause, whether of fear 
or indisposition, would he have walked on it ? Certainly 
not. The reason why Peter did not walk on the water was, 
because he would not, when he might have done so. Hence 
his faith was deficient. He had little faith, or little firmness 
of will — deficient submission of the volition — defective obe- 
dience. There is no command given to men by Christ Jesus 
if they be free agents, that they cannot obey, if they have the 
firmness of the will. A firm will is firm faith. It was man's 
will that was paralyzed in the fall. It is the peculiar business 
of the system of Christ to reinvigorate the will. Instead of 
being on the water, had our Saviour and Peter been on land, 
and Peter had been directed to come to Christ walking on 
the land, and Peter had refused ; would not the refusal have 
been the want of the will — the deficient submission of the 
volition ? Then, why is not the remark equally applicable 
to walking on the water, when it was just as easy for Peter 
to walk on the water at the command of God, as to walk on 
the land in accordance of a law or command of the same 
being — the same divine power ? The scriptural account says, 
when Peter saw the " wind boisterous, and was afraid, and 
beginning to sink, cried," &c. Notice this language. His begim 
ning to sink, was the effect of his fear : disobedient action, 
being the effect of disobedient, infirm, or defective volition. 
Or, rather there was a want of obedient action because of the 
want of obedient will. 

The great question here is, what constituted Peter's want 
of faith ? in what was he deficient ? If we know in what 
consisted Peter's deficiency, then we know what faith is. 

It is beyond question true, that whatever Peter's sin or 
deficiency was, it manifested itself, for the first time, between 



120 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



the moment of his successful obedience to the command of 
his Master, and the moment when he began to sink, in point 
of time but a few moments. 

It could not have been want of grace primarily, for several 
reasons : 

1st. Because grace in the soul does not rise or fall, but as 
consequent upon the rise and fall of the obedient will. 

2d. Peter could not have been rebuked for want of grace, 
but as consequent upon the w r ant of some precedent quality ; 
because grace is the gift of God consequent upon human 
obedience. If Peter desired more grace, he should have been 
more obedient. It could not have been any alteration in the 
convictions of Peter's understanding, because understanding 
cannot produce an action. 

This reason is elsewhere elucidated. 

The command of the Saviour to Peter was a command to 
walk on the water, not to sink in the water. When he sank, 
it plainly appears that he disobeyed Christ. If Peter had 
not been afraid ; or in other words, if Peter had obeyed 
Christ, his spiritual strength would have been increased. And 
why ? Because obedience to Christ procures the grace of God, 
according to the law or covenant of God in the Gospel. An 
increase of spiritual strength is nothing more than an increase 
of the grace of God in the soul. It was very true that Peter 
was deficient in grace, because a man may have grace enough 
to obey any and every command of the Saviour. Christ 
knew Peter was deficient in the grace necessary to obey his 
command. Hence it was a trial of his faith : it was no trial 
upon any other hypothesis. Peter's inability to obey, taught, 
and was designed to teach, him the lesson of the necessity of 
greater obedience. This would bring him nearer to Christ. 
The trial was not primarily the trial of Peter's grace, but the 
trial of Peter's faith. Faith and grace stand in relation to 
each other as cause and effect ; and although God cannot try 



FAITH. 



121 



the one, without thereby incidentally and collaterally trying 
the other, yet there is a very great difference between the 
two trials. The trial of grace will be in the other world. We 
have nothing to do with faith in the other world — at the bar 
of God. The question there will be grace, and grace only. 
But here the trial of faith is attended with the very best con*- 
sequences. The strength of faith is the measure of grace. In 
this life, man's grace is measured by his faith, because faith is 
the condition of grace ; but we must bear in mind, that this 
life is a trial life, and the trial is to test faith in order to pro- 
cure grace, in order to make use of grace when we appear at 
the bar of God, as our claim and passport to heaven. Our 
faith, however great and unfaltering, will be of no use to us 
when we come to be judged ; because we are not judged 
according to faith, but according to grace ; because faith is 
the condition of Christ Jesus' salvation system confined to 
this life, by which grace may be procured. Suppose in our 
trial state, we are tempted to sin by the desires of our animal 
nature — if we yield, our faith is weak, and we may thereby 
know that our grace is weak. Having discovered the weak- 
ness, the remedy must be sought in increased obedience, with 
a view to consequent increased grace. The system of Christ, 
is one of the most practical systems ever invented. Christ 
kneiu that Peter was deficient in grace, and hence could not 
have required him to do a thing he knew he could not do, 
merely to exhibit his deficiency, when grace comes from God. 
Such a thing would have been unprofitable, if not purely 
malicious : but it is altogether different, if we regard the com- 
mand as a trial of Peter's faith. Peter's obedience was the 
measure of his grace. If he proved weak of will, he proved 
weak of faith, and hence his grace was in exact proportion 
weak. Without a trial of faith, life would not be probation- 
ary. What could have been gained by the trial of Peter's 
grace ? The trial could have been of no satisfaction to Christ, 

6 



122 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



because he knew it already. It could have been of no utility 
to Peter, because grace is a power, or principle, or active mo- 
tive wholly within the gift of God. And Peter's discovering 
his want of grace, would have been no new motive with God 
to induce him to supply Peter's deficiency, because God 
knew of the deficiency just as well before the trial began, as 
after Peter began to sink. The trial of Peter was not made 
with any design to act upon God, but to act upon Peter, and 
by the example, upon all future generations of men. The great 
lesson it teaches is, that deficient obedience is the proof of 
deficient grace ; and the remedy, the increase of obedience. 
The voluntary submission of the will to the commands of 
Jesus Christ, is the way pointed out, and declared in the sal- 
vation system coming from him, by which the love, or grace, 
or holiness, or mercy, or favor, or righteousness of God, may 
be obtained by a sinner. This submission of the will to the 
Divine will, is the source or cause of actions. Hence actions 
are the evidence of the submission. 

We will now turn our attention to the case of the thief on 
the cross. 

It was as possible for the thief on the cross to obey the 
condition of grace, as for any of the Apostles. We are to 
remember, that actions are the fruit and test, or rather the 
practical exhibition or manifestation of a rule. He who 
adopts the rule radically, must, and will illustrate the rule in 
action, opportunity serving. The thief exercised obedience of 
will to Christ in thought and deed. It is very true, the evi- 
dence of action, or the active declaration or manifestation is 
wanting. But the evidence of a rule is a distinct thing from 
the rule or purpose of will or chosen motive. God in truth 
requires no evidence to prove to him the existence of a pur- 
pose or condition of will, or choice of motive. We are under 
a necessity to believe that the thief complied with the condi- 
tion of grace, although we have no evidence of his compliance 



FAITH. 



123 



in Christian acts, from the fact, that the Saviour told him, 
u This daythou shalt be with me in Paradise." 

The condition of salvation being a rule of action, the sub- 
mission of the volition to this rule, as the rule of grace, must 
necessarily precede the manifestation of the submission in 
the declaratory prescribed action. 

Now the thief on the cross submitted his volition to the 
commands of a mediator, as the rule of his volition, as far as 
practicable, and he was never afterwards called upon to 
manifest this submission in other commands of Jesus Christ 
as mediator. But we have every reason to believe that this 
submission of the volition, would have continued to display 
or manifest itself, even if he had been taken from the cross 
and restored to society. Had it continued, in the event of 
his restoration to society, it would have manifested itself in 
the prescribed mediatorial actions. Much of the force of the 
definition is derivable from a proper conception of an action. 
What is an action ? An action, apart from the actor, is an 
abstraction — a nonentity. It has and can have no existence. 
An action is nothing more than the manifestation of the 
state of the will. " An action," says Dr. Thomas Brown, 
certainly with great truth, " cannot truly have any quality 
which the agent has not, because the action is truly nothing 
unless as significant of the agent whom we know, or of some 
other agent whom we imagine. Virtue, as distinct from the 
virtuous person, and vice, as distinct from the vicious person, 
are mere names, or abstractions, or imaginations, having no 
more existence than a fancy." An action, says Mr. Brown, 
is an actor in circumstances doing a certain thing. Or, to 
bring the point more boldly out, an action is a moral motive, 
called man manifested. Man is nothing but a moral motive 
inhabiting a clay tenement. A willing principle put on trial 
with a certain amount of intellectual light, has to perform 
the condition of salvation, or not to perform it, as it chooses. 



124: 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



The thief on the cross was then a choosing or willing princi- 
ple, having a clay body and a certain amount of intellectual 
light, when he was called upon to comply with the condition 
of grace. The exercise of his volition was nothing more than 
the discovery of the state of his volition. If an action be the 
actor manifested, the actor may be supposed to exist unman- 
ifested, just before the action, under the control of the same 
motive that produced the action. If the thief complied with 
the condition of grace, and his discovery of that compliance 
to the Saviour was a true discovery, the compliance must have 
existed anterior to the discovery. Hence the compliance 
must be the state of the volition, and the actions the mani- 
festations of this pre-existing state. It must be the surrender 
of the volition to Christ. The intellect can make no free 
surrender. The body can make no free surrender. The will 
chooses, and before the choice is manifested in an action, the 
choice of the volition is the state or condition of the volition. 
It is nothing more than the predominance of a good motive. 
It is the espousal of God. It is taking God for his portion. 
It is the abnegation of the human will and the choice of the 
will of God ; i. e., the voluntary choice of God. The thief 
only did what St. Peter was required to do, viz., to submit 
his volition to the will of God. 

The moral probationer who brings his volition to the 
point of subjection to the will of Christ, has complied with 
Christ's condition, upon which God's grace depends, as effect- 
ually as though he were to live a thousand years, and were 
to perform every action required in the Gospel from one end 
of it to the other. And why ? Certainly because an action 
is an effect, an offspring, an evidence, a declaration, a mani- 
festation of the pre-existing state of the actor. Suppose a 
probationer complies with the condition of grace, by bring- 
ing his volition to the point of subjection to the will of 
Christ, he comes into the possession of the grace of God just 



FAITH. 



125 



as certainly as it is a condition, according to the established 
law of God in this regard. 

It is a law of God that grace shall accrue to that free 
agent — free to choose to comply and free not to choose to 
comply — whenever he complies with the condition. God's 
agency here ceases. He has established the law and that is 
all a moral probationer can or ought to require of him. 

The only distinction between the condition of the Adamic 
dispensation and that of the Christian dispensation, is with 
respect to the necessity of prescribed actions under a media- 
tor, when there was none under the first. No actions of 
obedience to a mediator were required of Adam in order to 
try and exemplify his obedience. He was only required to 
obey God directly, by abstaining from evil. But the pre- 
scribed acts of the Christian system consist in the discharge 
of duties of practical utility, as well as abstinence from moral 
evil. 

Adam was required to submit his will to the will of God. 
The submission of the will of the creature to God, is only 
another form of expression to imply supreme voluntary love 
of God. 

Why was the act of Abel an act of faith, and why was the 
act of Cain otherwise ? The answer is very plain. Abel sub- 
mitted his will to God, the Eedeemer, and offered the proper 
offering. He offered "the firstlings of his flock." But 
what did Cain offer ? He offered vegetables. It was not a 
proper offering. The altar required a bleeding victim. There 
was no blood in fruit. It could not prefigure the atonement 
of Christ. Cain followed his own will and disregarded the 
will of God. Hence his punishment, and hence the justice 
of his punishment. 

Why was Noah, whom St. Peter called a preacher of 
righteousness, a righteous man ? The answer is plain. Be- 
cause he submitted his will to the will of Christ, and did 



126 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



one of the most ridiculous things, in the eye of human judg- 
ment, in the whole range of the Bible. He constructed an 
ark to stand a flood of forty days — a thing out of all rea- 
sonable calculation. Suppose he had refused like Cain, — re- 
fused to carry God's will into execution, — like Cain he would 
have been a vagabond. 

"We desire to say here incidentally that those who believe 
that God can make a covenant with man, are at liberty to 
do so. We demur to any such nonsense. Through Christ 
Jesus he may deliver a covenant, or a dispensation, or reveal 
a prophecy, but God cannot directly do it. Could he, the 
Christian mediatorial system would have been useless. Hence 
Christ is the Jehovah of Prophecy in this regard. Were 
direct intercourse possible, the indirect is foolishness. Let 
us allude to the case of Abraham with more particularity. 

St. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, says, " What shall 
we say, then, that Abraham, our father, as pertaining to the 
flesh, hath found ? For if Abraham were justified by works he 
hath whereof to boast, but not before God ; for what saith 
the Scriptures ? Abraham believed God, and it was counted 
unto him for righteousness." No accurate Bible reader will 
for a moment suppose that Abraham, being one of the sons 
of fallen Adam, could render a service or perform an act, 
aside from the mediatorial system of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
that would be pleasing and acceptable to God. 

The apostle is supposed to refer to this servant of God in 
preparing to offer his son Isaac upon Mount Moriah. He 
refers to the intentional sacrifice of Isaac as a type, or as " in 
a figure," representing the scene on Calvary, then in the future. 
The most remarkable circumstance connected with the con- 
duct of Abraham was the fact that he was willing (mark the 
expression) to offer up his own child in a bloody death by his 
own hand to obey God. W T e cannot conceive of an act, than 
the one demanded of Abraham, more calculated to stagger 



FAITH. 



127 



the resolution of man. Ponder over this thing. This obe- 
dient servant of God, whose sublime act of faith we are now 
considering, having approached to the foot of the mountain, 
there left his two attendants, ascended it with his son alone, 
and bound him upon the altar preparatory to the final act of 
obedience, so contrary to every ray of human intellectual light, 
and so repugnant to every feeling that can inhabit the paren- 
tal bosom. He was about to slay his own and only child, 
and his own hand was to guide the blood-weapon. The only 
thing that could justify the act was the command of God. 
Had he commanded it ? If God commanded it, the act of 
the creature was an act of righteousness, because it is right- 
eousness to obey God. If God had not commanded it, he 
was a fanatical parricide. 

Even had the sacrifice taken place, it would not have been 
more an act of faith, although it would have been a more af- 
fecting one than the preliminary steps taken with a view to 
the sacrifice. 

Before we proceed with the argument, let us listen to the 
finale of this interesting scene. 

" Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any 
thing to him. Now I know that thou fearest God, since thou 
hast not withheld thine only son from meP 

This lets us into the secret : Abraham submitted his will to 
the will of God, and it was counted unto him for righteous- 
ness, i. e., the will of God became the righteousness, or justi- 
fication, of the action. 

A very important view of this question here presents itself, 
and we had as well discuss it here as elsewhere. 

St. Paul says, that " if Abraham were justified by works, 
he hath whereof to boast, but not before God." 

What was the procuring cause of Abraham's justification 
before God, for and on account of this heroic instance of faith \ 
Because he did what God directed him to do ? A sinner can- 



128 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



not, by self-will, or independent self-determining power of will, 
do an act pleasing to God. 

Nothing pleases God but his own will, voluntarily exer- 
cised by man. It is not to be denied that it might be prop- 
erly urged against us, that we impinge the doctrine of salva- 
tion by grace alone, had we contended, in addition to the 
point we have confidently made of considering the voluntary 
submission of the will, resulting in good works, as the condi- 
tion of salvation, that this condition was the procuring cause 
of salvation, which the careful reader will observe, we cer- 
tainly have not. 

Against the doctrine that the merit of good works is the 
justificatory cause of human salvation, we wage a sleepless 
warfare. We think it has not an inch of ground in the sacred 
record upon which it can stand. It is as unphilosophical as 
it is plainly unscriptural. 

It seems to be a matter of easy accomplishment for the 
mind to take hold of the interesting distinction we desire to 
urge in the most impressive manner, between regarding the 
condition of salvation which we consider to consist in the dis- 
charge of the divine injunctions which the mediator has im- 
posed upon us, and regarding that condition as the justifying 
cause of salvation. 

Had we contended that the probationer could plead the 
merit of the faithful discharge of the obligations enjoined in 
the Christian scriptures, either in this life or at the bar of God, 
as a sufficient and meritorious claim, entitling him to salva- 
tion, it might with great propriety be urged against us, that 
we had abandoned the doctrine of salvation by faith or grace 
alone. 

We define faith as consisting in the faithful discharge of 
the divine commands of the Mediator; faith, as represented 
or manifested in the performance of the active charities of the 
Gospel. But when we unequivocally maintain, that the con- 



FAITH. 



129 



dition of salvation is wholly unmeritorious, and though the 
probationer may have that plea, it will avail him nothing — - 
not an iota — for the purpose of procuring grace, since the only 
procuring cause of salvation is the merits of the Mediator, 
no such charge can be sustained against us. Those persons 
who are in the pursuit of the truth upon this interesting sub- 
ject, will have observed from a study of the Scriptures, that 
the term faith is not a specific, but a general term. 

Faith often means the grace of God, and it often means 
the condition of salvation ; and it has yet other meanings. 

Although we maintain that we are saved by faith, we do 
not mean that faith alone is the proximate cause of salvation. 

"When we say we are saved by faith, we mean that there is 
no merit in good works to save us. When we say we are 
saved by faith, we do not mean that faith is the procuring 
cause of justification, but that it is the remote cause. Noth- 
ing saves a sinner but the grace of God ; nothing procures 
the grace of God but faith ; and nothing causes faith to pro- 
cure the grace of God but the atoning blood of the Redeemer. 
We are saved by faith, considered as the condition of the Gos- 
pel, in contradistinction from the merit of this faith consisting 
in good works, because faith alone is the mode by which a 
sinner is entitled to use the merit of the blood of Christ ; as 
it is the blood of Christ that can alone procure the grace of 
God, as it is the grace of God that can alone save the soul. 

These important distinctions will be of great use when we 
come to reconcile the various scriptural authorities in which 
the term faith occurs. 

Many pious Christians contend that faith is the gift of God. 

That faith is the gift of God there can be no question. 

Faith is the condition of the salvation system of Jesus 
Christ, and we regard the whole system, condition and all, as 
the free gift of God to man. If the calamitous circumstances 
of the human family demanded the ignominious death of the 

6* 



130 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



Mediator as a price for their ransom in the persons of the 
heads of the race, and the privilege of introducing the laws 
of a new salvation dispensation, in order to suit the circum- 
stances of another probationary trial with the same race un- 
der his auspices, may we not regard it as the most conclusive 
and unanswerable proof, that the condition of the system not 
only bears date in point of origin with the system, but that 
the procured condition was the gift of God, and would never 
be altered ? 

Faith, as the condition of the dispensation of Jesus Christ, 
and the dispensation itself from moral necessity, take their 
rise in the same benignant interference of man's days-man, 
and as both originated in the grace and favor of God in the 
face of Jesus Christ, both condition and dispensation have 
become the settled unchangeable laws of God, freely granted, 
operating like the residue of God's laws whenever the re- 
quired circumstances call forth their inherent vitality. 

God is an unchano-eable being. 

The scheme, including the condition, cost the suffering and 
death of the Son of God, because Adam's sin stood in the 
way of it. The condition of a system does not differ from 
those directions of the system that are essential to secure the 
benefit of the system as a system of probationary laws. 
That the condition of a system, procured under such weighty 
and impressive circumstances, could be either changed or 
modified, and made to depend upon the post- voluntary 
pleasure of the grantor, would imply, it would seem, the 
necessity of a corresponding manifestation in the flesh, a life 
of suffering and death of ignominy upon the part of the 
mediator, suited to every change of the condition that might 
be agreed upon between the grantor and the procurer, or 
the inutility and absurdity of such an expense and outlay in 
the first instance. 

A covenant grant from Father to Son for the benefit of 



FAITH. 



131 



third parties hopelessly in ruins, containing a condition, im- 
plies the perpetuity and steadfastness of the condition, or the 
immoral versatility of the contracting parties and the third 
parties, the objects of the implied grant would, in such an 
event, be the sjwrt of the spirit of uncertainty. 

It is impossible to conclude otherwise than that any and 
every modification of a condition of any system is not only 
a departure from the system, but pro tanto, an abandonment 
of it. 

"We may, then, safely conclude that the condition of the 
Christian dispensation, so far as man is concerned, dated from 
the fall, but so far as the contracting parties are concerned, 
from the eternal counsels of God, and has not only not un- 
dergone any modification or alteration from the moment 
when it first became the law of the dispensation, but the 
benefits that accrue from the observance of it have not at any 
time depended upon any other pleasure of God than that 
pleasure that moved him originally to fix the law. God's 
justice and integrity of character are pledged by considera- 
tions connected with the tragedy of Calvary to two things : 
1st, That the condition of human salvation has not been 
changed since it was first agreed upon in the counsels of 
eternal wisdom ; and 2d, That he has not required any 
other condition of his grace than the one agreed to, and 
granted upon the considerations of the vicarious atonement 
of Christ, from any one of the race of Adam, for whose 
benefit it was originally procured, from the period of Adam's 
restoration to the present moment. 

Does it not, therefore, follow, if we may rely upon the 
truth of these propositions, that any definition of Faith as 
the condition of the mediatorial dispensation which does not 
suit in every particular the cases of every individual of the 
human family saved from the curse of the law in the per- 
sons of their federal representatives, for whose benefit, as the 



132 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



heads of a future race, it was originally procured and de- 
signed, is, and of necessity must be, unscriptural and untrue ? 

Abraham obeyed God, and bis obedience was counted unto 
bim for righteousness. Now, what was Abraham's obedi- 
ence ? His obedience was the prevalence given to the will 
of God — the mediatorial J ehovah of prophecy. When Abra- 
ham obeyed the will of God, the will of God prevailed, and 
the will of God is God himself. The justification of Abra- 
ham's action was, that it was performed virtually by God 
himself, spiritually present. That constituted the righteous- 
ness of Abraham. He was righteous because the will of God- 
was in him by the free voluntary choice of Abraham's will. 
Whenever man's will is lost in the will of God, it is God's 
will that prevails. And when God's will prevails the act is 
righteous. Why righteous ? Because of the action, or the 
merit of the action, or because man performed it aside from 
the will of God ? Not at all. Nothing makes an action 
righteous but the prevalence of the will of God, and the con- 
sequent departure, or loss of the repugnant or opposite will 
of man. God is the source of every meritorious action. 

Hence Abraham's faith consisted in obedience. His actions 
declared his faith. So with respect to the practical commands 
of the Gospel. The practical commands of the Gospel are as 
much the commands of God as the command to Abraham 
now under review. 

We now proceed to inquire whether the explanation we 
have given of faith will apply to the case of the Jews under 
the Mosaic dispensation. We are to bear in mind, that no 
new choice in respect to moral good or evil was required of 
the Jews that had not been required of Adam and of his 
children, previous to the time of Moses, of the Jews, and 
now of the Christians. This is the command of the supreme 
love of God. This excludes by necessity, the choice of evil 
or contrary supreme love of evil. To accomplish this is 



FAITH. 



133 



what gives rise to Christian dispensations. To acquire an 
ability to obey this law a peculiar dispensation was granted 
to the Jews, just as a peculiar dispensation is contained in 
the Gospel, preserving the same original law, and preserving 
the same condition, but only applying the condition to a dif- 
ferent series of commands. The question arises, how could 
the forms, the rites, the ceremonies, the allusive institutions 
and other commands of Jesus Christ assist the Jews in obey- 
ing the law of supreme free love of God ? We are to re-^ 
member that the Jews were the fallen sons of Adam, and had 
no natural ability to love God supremely, or to avoid the 
choice of evil voluntarily. This could only be acquired ac- 
cording to a mercy scheme with a condition. In confirma- 
tion of the doctrine, that the Jews had to love God with a 
supreme affection, a thing that no man can naturally do, we 
have only to refer to the Jewish Scriptures. 

" Hear, O Israel," says the J ewish lawgiver, as he was 
about to recapitulate the divine law, " the Lord our God is 
one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." — 
Deut. vi., Lev. xix. 

This law of supreme love of God was not added to, or in- 
terfered with in the moral law. The moral law is only an 
exemplification or explanation of this original law. The man 
that loves God supremely cannot be influenced by a love of 
evil. A love of evil is the evidence that the love of good is 
imperfect, and hence in a state of subordination. If the love 
of good, or of God, which is the same thing, had controlled 
the operative faculties, it would have included .a necessary 
avoidance of the prohibitions of the moral law. 

Now the allusive ceremonies of the Jewish dispensation 
were made the condition of grace, and their faithful observ- 
ance, upon the part of the Jews, was made necessary to the 
r >wa1 of God's grace. 



134 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



Hence the condition of the Jewish dispensation was noth- 
ing more than the submission of the will, upon the part of 
the Jews, to the requirements of the mediatorial dispensation. 
The condition of the Gospel is the same. It is to be re- 
marked, that the submission of the will to certain laws in- 
cludes not only the regular performance of them, but their 
performance in the spirit in which they were instituted. 
Most of the ceremonies of the Jewish dispensation were types, 
^and alluded to the shed blood of Calvary, and this allusion 
had to be preserved in the performance of the type, or the 
performance of the typical requirement would not have been 
performed in obedience to the will of God. 

Abihu and Nadab, the sons of the high-priest, were con- 
sumed for burning incense with strange fire, — fire not taken 
from the altar, as God had required. These men did not 
submit their wills to the will of the author of that phase of 
the mediatorial dispensation. Now, the Jew who faithfully 
submitted his will to the will of Jesus Christ, as revealed or 
manifested in the Jewish condition of grace, procured the 
grace of God, not because there was any merit in those op- 
pressive ceremonial institutions, but because an imparted 
efficacy was given to their faithful discharge, derivable from 
the precious blood of Calvary. 

We think the definition we have given of faith, commends 
itself very much to the public approval, from the considera- 
tion that the moral probationer is not driven to do what ap- 
pears to be singularly ruinous to the character of God — to 
discriminate between the different commands of the Gospel ; 
assigning to one a prominence to which it has, and can 
possibly have no claim, and the consequent depreciation of 
others. What Christ Jesus has failed to do in this respect, 
qo human being has a right to amend. The Apocalyptic 
threatening should scare away all such innovation from the 
word of life. Whoever assumes to assign to prayer, or 



FAITH. 



135 



attendance upon church ceremonies, or to any other acknowl- 
edged rule of the Gospel, a greater importance than is due to 
the directions, " to owe no man any thing," " to render unto 
Caesar the things that are his," " to clothe the naked," to 
"feed the hungry," &c., is in danger of the -curse of the evan- 
gelist, of having his " part taken away out of the book of 
life." Christian churches as well as Christian indivi duals, 
should examine this matter carefully in respect to their various 
acts. 

" Oh, may that mercy that sits in the clouds, 
Look into the bottom of this woe." 

There is no distinction between the faith of a sinner and 
the faith of a Christian or saint of God, regarding faith as the 
condition of the Christian system. How can there be ? Are 
there two conditions of grace ? Does a sinner have one con- 
dition to perform, and does a saint of God have another and 
a different condition ? Surely not. The condition of the 
Gospel is offered to sinners, which implies, that they have an 
ability to perform it. 

Suppose the condition of the Scriptures had been the 
science of mathematics, offered to persons wholly unacquaint- 
ed with its very first principles — of course the instance is not 
exactly parallel, but it will serve to show that the faith of the 
sinner is the same condition as the faith of the saint. The 
moral probationer then would have, when he first began to 
comply with the condition, when he did not understand one 
rule of quantity, the same condition to perform as he who 
comprehended the entire science. Just so with the sinner 
and the Christian. The sinner has to submit his will to the 
will of Christ, but in the beginning of his religious career, he 
will find this very difficult to do — but the saint does it very 
easily, or rather comparatively easy : but the condition is the 
same. Because a sinner becomes a saint, it is no reason why 
God should change the condition of the Gospel — nor is it a 



136 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



reason why he should change the condition, because the sin- 
ner finds it difficult to discharge it in the beginning of his 
trial. The saint has no advantage over a sinner in respect to 
the condition. Because a moral probationer is a sinner, it 
does not follow that he shall always remain a sinner. The 
reason why a saint, or a Christian in the full sense of the 
term, is enabled to perform the one common condition of 
safety more readily than a sinner is, because the saint has the 
grace of God. But it was faith that made the sinner a saint. 
The Christian has his confidence or faith in the condition of 
grace very much strengthened, because he has experienced 
the efficacy of it. The saint having experienced the benefits 
that flow from the performance of the condition, is very mani- 
festly thereby built up in confidence in his most holy faith. 

Devout applications are frequently made to God to increase 
our faith. A difficulty here arises from the use of a general 
and not a specific term. Persons who make these supplica- 
tions, are not to be understood as requesting God to alter the 
condition of salvation, or that it would be desirable in their 
estimation to have the condition interfered with by way of 
addition or even of diminution. Any change in this regard, 
would be a radical alteration of the fundamental laws of the 
Christian system. Not less absurd are the terms justifying 
faith, and evangelical faith. The use of these phrases betrays 
the absence of the just apprehension of the cardinal principles 
of a vicarious atonement scheme. It is the merit of the 
Mediator, and the efficacy of his vicarious shed blood that 
constitutes the cause of justification with God. It is out of 
the range of just reasoning to suppose that a condition of an 
effect is the cause of the effect. Such a rule does not prevail 
anywhere throughout the universe of God, — then why should 
it prevail in the Christian system, since it is philosophically 
absurd ? The conditions of an effect are the precedent requisi- 
tions of the Being causing the effect. Justification of a sinner, is 



FAITH. 



137 



an effect produced by the first cause, or God. Faith is the 
condition required by the first cause, in order to induce the 
first cause to effectuate something that can only be effected 
by the first cause. God's grace justifies the sinner, or rather 
God justifies the sinner, and the evidence of it is the conse- 
quent bestowal of his grace, which causes salvation. 

We can see no sense at all in evangelical faith, but a very 
preposterous sense. We are unable to comprehend how a law 
written in a certain book can be evangelical. How can a 
direction, an abstract condition of grace, possess grace or be 
evangelical ? 

If faith justifies, then the grace of God does not justify ; and 
if faith be evangelical, then an abstract conception, capable of 
being revealed and written in a book, may be holy. An evan- 
gelical condition of salvation ! God has made the condition 
of salvation evangelical ! Evangelical faith may mean the con- 
dition of the Gospel, and may be called evangelical, because it 
is the Gospel condition, but it is not used in that sense. There 
is a Gospel condition of justification, we grant, but it is a 
Gospel condition because written in the Gospel. The term 
is used to imply that certain persons may be in the p> osses ' 
sion of an evangelical faith regarded as the condition of 
grace. A moral probationer may become evangelical, by 
complying with the condition of grace, but how the condition 
can be evangelical, we are unable to perceive. 

Upon one occasion a ruler of the Jews came to Christ by 
night, to make inquiries upon the subject of the Christian 
religion. Christ told him, M Except a man be born again, 
he cannot see the kingdom of God." 

In this connection it is important to inquire what is the 
condition of being born again. Certainly to be spiritually 
born again implies the same thing precisely as to acquire 
the Christian religion. Hence the condition of the spiritual 
birth and the condition of the Christian religion is the same 



138 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



identical condition. Faith, then, is the condition in each 
case. 

We have here a command of Jesus Christ that every 
sinner must be born again in order to enter into his spiritual 
kingdom, or to acquire his religion. The commands of 
Jesus Christ have all an equal vitality. They are vital with 
power in proportion to the power of God. Hence this com- 
mand is analogous to the one given to St. Peter, to walk 
upon the water. And the condition is the same. The sinner 
has now precisely the same power to be born again, or to ac- 
quire the Christian religion, that St. Peter had to walk on 
water, or that the cripple had to arise upon healthy limbs. 

Any man can acquire the Christian religion, or be spiritu- 
ally born again, who so chooses, or whenever he so chooses, 
just as easily as Peter could walk on the water. It is the 
ability all men have to obey a law of God, in which category 
we are to classify the commands of Jesus Christ. 

We forbear to say a natural ability, because we do not 
like the word natural in this connection. The term natural 
is only applicable to matter. It has the same signification 
as material or animal, and relates to the body. 

Christ Jesus requires a natural obedience, but he also 
requires a spiritual obedience. Hence we say all men have 
an ability to obey the spiritual laws of the Gospel, analogous 
to the ability Peter possessed to obey Christ, whenever they 
choose : but men are afraid, as was Peter, or they are indis- 
posed, and hence do not choose to obey. 

Now we are to remember what was the object of Jesus 
Christ in instituting his mediatorial system. It is to enable 
man to obey the spiritual laws of God. To obey God is to 
Jove God. The object was not to enable man to obey Jesus 
Christ : not to enable him to obey his natural laws. If 
that had been the object, it would have required another 
distinct dispensation. 



FAITH. 



139 



The object of a dispensation of salvation laws by a divine 
go-between, is to affect the relation between two other par- 
ties — between God and man. Hence the object of the Gos- 
pel of Jesus Christ, with its condition and with its means of 
grace, is to affect the relation between God and man, and 
that object is to render man, unable, able ; indisposed, dis- 
posed ; afraid, courageous ; weak of will, strong of will to 
choose to obey God spiritually. We cannot choose God, or 
grace, or religion, or the new spiritual birth, but the system of 
Jesus Christ, containing natural and spiritual commands, ena- 
bles us to choose God, or grace, or religion, or the new birth. 
We must not lose sight of the relation between God and 
man, aside from the mediator. It is a relation of hostility or 
non-intercourse. It is to overcome or avoid this hostility 
that constitutes the object in the view of the mediation, and 
the mediatorial system effectuates it. 

The condition called faith of the mediatorial system, called 
the Gospel, and the means of grace of this system, called the 
institutions of the Gospel, sustain the same relation to man 
that the mediator himself sustained to St. Peter and to other 
Christians during his incarnation. They enable men to 
obey God. Christ Jesus has a condition to his Gospel, and 
he has institutions to his Gospel, both having a different 
end. The object of the condition is to enable man to obey 
God, and the object of Christian institutions is to enable 
man to obey the condition. The ultimate end is however 
the same. Now the necessity for the institution of the means 
of grace, — such, for example, as prayer, fasting, repentance, 
almsgiving, baptism, the sacrament, <fcc, — which men have 
a natural ability to perform, did not originate because men 
have no ability, although the ability is not natural, to 
choose the Christian religion, or to comply with the condi- 
tion, which is the same thing, but because they are afraid, 
or indisposed to choose God. But faith has no such object. 



140 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



The object of faith as the condition of the Gospel is to 
enable man to choose God or the Christian religion. Hence 
it often happens that men comply with the condition with- 
out complying with any of the institutions of religion. It 
was possible for men to choose the Christian religion before 
baptism, for example, was instituted. The object of means 
of grace is to increase the disposition and to dissipate the 
fear with respect to the condition. God is just as willing to 
grant the new spiritual birth, or the Christian religion now, 
as on the day of Pentecost, and to every man as to the 
three thousand that then entered into Christ's spiritual king- 
dom. Christ has already obtained God's willingness, and 
now he has to obtain man's willingness. This is the object 
of his system, with its conditions and its instrumentalities. 
He mediates, by means of his system, between a willing 
God and unwilling man. It would follow, undoubtedly, that 
if Jesus Christ were to direct a man to do a particular 
thing, which he knew he could not do, that he was either 
not a divine person, or a divine person exercising duplicity. 
So also if Christ were to direct a man to do a particular 
thing, which he knew he could not do, and were to make 
him do it, whether he willed freely to do it or not, by the 
exercise of his divine power to that effect, he would thereby 
clearly destroy the man's free agency. Every thing not 
divine and not free, is necessitated to obey the divine com- 
mand. Man being a free agent and Christ always consist- 
ent, he never utters a command to him except predicated 
upon his free agency, meaning by free agency, man's ability 
to do it or not to do it, as he chooses. 

When Christ told Peter to walk to him on the water, 
Peter had the power of choice. He could either obey the 
law or not obey it, as he chose. But Peter was afraid. 
It is immaterial whence comes the disobedience. He was 
inclined to obey but did not — not because he ceukl not, but 



FAITH. 



141 



simply because he would not. M How often would I have 
gathered you together," said Christ to the Jews, " as a hen 
gathereth her brood under her wings, but ye ivould not" 
He does not say they could not. 

Mankind are precisely in this condition with respect to 
the new spiritual birth or the Christian religion. 

Now the language of our Saviour to the Jews would be 
unscriptural in the mouth of God. "Were he to tell man- 
kind that he desired their obedience and that they would 
not grant it, the language would be unscriptural. It would 
be only scriptural for God to say that they could not. 
Hence the necessity of the mediator and his system. God 
would, consistently with scriptural teaching, have to refer 
the sinner to the mediator and to his Gospel laws for abil- 
ity. There would be no necessity for a divine go-between 
or mediator, if the two parties could reconcile subsisting 
difficulties by direct intercourse. 

The condition of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only 
solvent that can dissolve the relation of enmity subsisting 
between a sinner and the creator of that sinner, who can- 
not behold sin with any allowance. It is into the charac- 
ter of that condition that we are now inquiring. 

We assert that this condition means obedience to Jesus 
Christ : an obedience, be it remarked, illustrated in certain 
prescribed actions ; and if illustrated in actions, necessarily 
vivifying the illustration. We must not confound the illus- 
tration or practical declaration of the principle with the 
principle itself. The principle is the principle of choice. 
As we have said, any man can acquire the new birth or 
the Christian religion — or we say the same thing when we 
say, that any man can comply with the condition of grace, 
— at any moment he chooses to comply, but the difficulty 
lies in the choosing. The choice is the condition. His 
willingness to choose must be pushed to actual choice— 



142 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



his willingness to will, to actual willing. The condition is 
actual choice — actual willing — and this is actual obedience. 
Is not actual obedience actual love ? Hence actual obe- 
dience of Christ is actual love of God. 

It is upon this philosophy that we have in all churches 
what are called revivals. These only mean a greater and 
more general concentration of the disposition to choose God, 
or the Christian religion, evinced in the choice of individu- 
als. "We must always remember that now, since the Ada- 
mic fall, when we choose the Christian religion we thereby 
choose God. The choice of God by A — or what is precisely 
the same thing, the conversion of A — or what is still the 
same thing, the new spiritual birth of A — encourages, by 
which we mean increases, the disjjosition of B to choose 
God or the Christian religion. When we choose God, or 
when we choose the Christian religion, we also choose the 
remission of sins. To choose God, to choose the Christian 
religion, to choose the new spiritual birth, to choose regen- 
eration, to choose grace, or righteousness, or mercy, or love, 
or salvation, is the same identical choice, expressed in dif- 
ferent language, and means the same thing precisely, and 
is also the same religion that Adam possessed when his 
soul was made a living soul. It is .the absence of this 
grace that constitutes spiritual death. This spiritual death 
is what St. Paul calls the carnal mind. It is the absence 
of the motive principle of grace, and the consequent domin- 
ion of the sinful tendency. 

The conversion of A and B (we now understand conver- 
sion to mean the choice of God, the choice of the Chris- 
tian religion, the choice of the remission of sins, the choice 
of the new spiritual birth, the choice of regeneration, the 
choice of grace, the choice of a living soul, the choice of 
that safe or salvation principle that constituted the spiritual 
life of Adam's primeval state), we say the conversion of A 



FAITH. 



U3 



and B encourages and makes C disposed to choose this 
new motive power. In this way, as the circle enlarges, the 
general willingness increases, and the revival spreads. It 
would never stop unless upon the cessation of the individual 
choosing, just as a fire may be supposed to stop for the 
want of the proper material. It is upon this hypothesis 
that a nation may be born in a day. A revival does not 
die away because God's salvation purposes undergo any alter- 
ation, or because he is any respecter of persons, but because 
men refuse to follow the contagious example. In times of 
revivals there is to be observed a more general and faith- 
ful use of the means of grace, with a view to their advan- 
tage upon the condition of grace, upon the performance of 
which the advantage of the Christian religion exclusively 
depends. But this increased individual and general disposi- 
tion to comply with the condition and the more general 
and faithful use of the means of grace do not impart any 
additional vitality to a command of Jesus Christ which it 
does not always intrinsically possess. The command of Jesus 
Christ stands upon a divinely-inspired record, as a divine 
will vital with energy, and directed to man, as &free agent, 
to obey or not. So far as Christ is concerned, and so far 
as the command may be concerned, it is not more difficult 
for man to obey the condition of the Gospel, than it is for 
him to comply with the means of grace, or any other natural 
law. But in the view of man's apparent impotency of reli- 
gious will, there is a very great distinction observable. It is 
much easier for man to be baptized than for him to be born 
again. So also it is much easier for him to pray than to be 
born again. But the source of the facility in the one case, 
and the source of the difficulty in the other case, is not to be 
looked for in any want of inherent power in the various com- 
mands of Jesus Christ. The origin lies in man's condition, 
or his unwillingness. So far as God is concerned, who gives 



144 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



the command, it cannot be more difficult for man to do what 
God commands in one case, than to do what he commands 
in another case, when the ability and inability both locate in 
the will of man as a free agent. Thus we see in case of a 
divine command given to free agents, the willingness of the 
free agent is necessarily the only condition remaining, and 
the unwillingness is the only conceivable hindrance. Hence 
the condition of religion must be the state of the human voli- 
tion. This seems to be unavoidable. We propose to illus- 
trate this view from a consideration of the commands of 
Jesus Christ delivered to objects other than free agents. Ma- 
terial bodies are under the government of divine commands. 
Electricity never refuses to run upon the wire. Water never 
refuses to run downwards. Gravitation never refuses to draw. 
Fire never refuses to burn. To follow a conductor is the divine 
law given to electricity. To flow downward is the law given to 
water, &c. These several divine commands are delivered to 
elements that have no freedom of will. If God were to exercise 
the same sovereignty over the human will that he does over 
material objects, the human will would be as readily religious 
or obedient as water flows downwards. This he could do very 
readily, but in so doing he w^ould destroy the freedom of the 
will, and hence could never receive from the human will vol- 
untary obedience. The entire machinery of salvation, as in- 
stituted by Jesus Christ, including its condition and its many 
instrumentalities, is predicated upon the voluntary ability of 
man to obey the divine commands, or it would never have 
been given. What can be plainer than that the manifest 
object of preaching the Gospel to every creature is to induce 
every creature to will to obey it ? No means can induce to 
an impossible end. A preached Gospel is a manifest Gospel 
institution. When we come to ascertain the condition of 
grace, comprehended in a divine salvation dispensation, we 
are to bear in mind that there are two wills comprehended in 



FAITH. 



145 



it, viz., the will of God and the will of man. This condition 
being a divine command, emanates from the divine will. To 
what is it addressed ? "Who can answer this question other- 
wise than that it is addressed to the free will of man ; for 
otherwise it would run to its end like a law of nature. Then 
the compliance must necessarily be made by the human will 
freely. Then this compliance must be the state of this hu- 
man will. Hence we hold that faith means the willing or 
voluntary obedience of the human volition to the divine com- 
mands of Jesus Christ. 

This is the condition of one and of all the commands of 
Jesus Christ. He commands, in addition to the one to be 
religious, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, repentance, and other 
means of grace. The condition of them all is the same. It 
is the willingness of the free agent manifested in the discharge 
of the prescribed actions. But then there are natural actions 
required. These actions are not more difficult to do than 
walking, or dancing, or running, or any other natural actions. 
But the command to be born again is a supernatural action. 
Is it any more difficult to do ? How is this question to be 
answered \ Can we dare affirm that it is difficult for man to 
do freely what God commands ? We dare not. God is a 
being of perfect power. He is the only supreme being, and 
his will is the resistless law of all action, and of all beings 1 
not free. Was it difficult for the apostles, freely or not, to 
perform miracles by the power of God ? It could not have 
been upon the supposition that God is all-powerful. It can- 
not be difficult for God's creature to do what God commands 
him to do, if it is not difficult for God to do it. If God be 
a being of infinite attributes he can, in the exercise of his un- 
limited sovereignty, enable an agent to do whatever he will 
have him to do. Christ wills men to be born again. It can- 
not be said of this will, that there is any difficulty in it, since 
it is a divine will. But in this aspect of the question we lose 



146 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



sight of the difficulty. Although it is not a difficult com- 
mand to obey, yet it is addressed to free agents, and it may 
be very difficult to induce these free agents to obey it, or to be 
willing to obey it, or will to obey. 

The reason why men are unwilling to be born again, when 
they desire to be born again ; or, to state the proposition differ- 
ently, the reason why men are unwilling to receive the Chris- 
tian religion when they desire it, is precisely the very same 
reason why St. Peter did not walk upon the water. They 
are afraid. It is a supernatural work. St. Peter's action of 
walking on the water was also a supernatural action. Now, 
for man to perform a supernatural work, his will is to be 
brought into concurrent agreement with the will of God, and 
he has to act by the will of God. This implies the surrender 
of the human will altogether, and obedience to the divine 
will. Man is afraid to make this surrender. St. Peter was 
afraid to make this surrender, and trusted to his own will, 
and so soon as he trusted to his own will, he began to sink 
naturally. We must trust exclusively to the divine will, and 
this trust must be voluntary. Here lies the difficulty. Then 
the condition is merely willing. In other words, it is trust in 
the will or command of God. It is the submission of the 
human will. It is obedience. Whenever we are obedient to 
Jesus Christ we thereby comply with the condition with two 
effects accompanying : 1st, the grace of God ; and 2d, the 
discharge of the prescribed actions of the Christian system. 

Nothing keeps a man from being religious but his unwil- 
lingness. It can be nothing else, since God wills it. Re- 
move man's unwillingness by making him will freely, or by 
making a machine of him, and the divine effect follows by 
God's will. Nothing checks God's will but man's free will 
freely adverse, or disobedient. God's will stands vital with 
energy to produce a certain effect upon a certain contingency. 
That contingency is man's obedience, or man's free volition. 



FAITH. 



147 



Hence, just as soon as inan wills the effect follows. God is 
always willing to grant religion, but man is not always wil- 
ling to receive it. But when he is, then he obtains it, for 
then nothing impedes the divine will ; and so, nothing im- 
peding it, it produces its effect. If a man says he is willing 
to receive the Christian religion, and yet does not receive it, 
one of two things must follow : 1st, either that God's will is 
impotent ; or 2d, man's free agency does not consist in the 
freedom of the will with respect to the divine command. 

Man is a free agent to take the Christian religion if he wills 
to take it. Such is also the will of God. Under this state of 
facts nothing can hinder but the failure of man's will. 

Now it stands man in hand to fight against his unwilling- 
ness. For this purpose, Gospel agencies and institutions are 
to be employed. 

It is upon these principles that we can explain why some 
men obtain religion at once. They become at once willing. 
Others obtain it gradually, because they acquire a willingness 
gradually — they obey gradually. The act of the will is the 
will in action. The will in action is the will willing. The 
will wills when it obtains religion. It wills or chooses it 
freely. To will to be religious, to choose religion, to take re- 
ligion, imply the obedient will of man to the will of God 
freely or voluntarily yielded. 

Willingness is an obscure word. It implies a desire to do 
a thing : it also implies the willing or choosing that thing. 
Actual willing is an actual action. We walk by God's law 
whenever we will to walk. We see the disposition in in- 
fants, but not the active or actual will. We may manifest 
every disposition to walk, but when we will to walk, we 
walk or we cannot freely will it. However we may desire to 
walk, we never walk until we will it. Just so with religion. 
When we will to do a thing we can do, we do it. We may 
greatly desire to do it, and may never will it. 



148 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



The condition of salvation is not as some persons imagine, 
the " assent we give to a proposition," but a moral remedy 
for a moral disorder — a divine prescription for the disease of 
sin. The assent we give to a proposition is a thing confined 
to the mind, or to the mental laboratory where the assent 
originated, but a condition of grace is revealed in written 
Scriptures. 

Much of the difficulty prevalent in the world with regard 
to the doctrine of faith, has arisen from a very remarkable 
misapprehension of the meaning of the celebrated declara- 
tion of St. Paul, " that faith is the substance of things hoped 
for, the evidence of things not seen." We say, in common 
phraseology, that knowledge is power. But do we mean 
that power is knowledge ? Do we not mean that knowledge 
gives, or secures power ? St. Paul merely expressed one of 
the plainest principles of the Bible, the effect of the condition 
of salvation. Faith as the condition of salvation, says St. 
Paul, will produce the substance of things hoped for, and the 
evidence of things not seen. He only means that faith pro- 
duces grace ; just as we say, gold is pleasure, or strength is 
security. This is a very familiar form of expression, by which 
we frequently call the thing produced by the name of the 
thing that produced it. Here grace is called faith. He says 
faith is grace. Faith is grace in that sense, and in the same 
sense that knowledge is power, or that health is happiness. 
In rhetoric it is called metonymy, and is a figure of speech 
allowable in all languages. The word " substance," in this 
Scripture, is the English word employed to render the mean- 
ing of the original word vtforfang. This word comes from 
upitfa/mi, which comes from u/xo, meaning under, and f^/jjun, to 
place or stand. Applied to the moral probationer perform- 
ing the condition of salvation, it means that he stands under 
a full conviction of things not seen. The object and effect 
of faith is to place the soul under the conviction of the in- 



FAITH. 



149 



risible things of God — the things hoped for but not seen, felt 
and enjoyed, but not cognizable by the human senses. Faith 
procures grace, as the proximate cause of grace, and hence 
St. Paul says the saint stands under a realizing sense of in- 
visible things. So that the interest of salvation becomes 
matter of direct personal consciousness. 

There is something strikingly repugnant to the system of 
Christianity and all philosophic proprieties in the idea usually 
attributed to those words, that the apostle means that the 
condition of salyation is the substance of things hoped for, 
and the eyidence of things not seen. It would certainly be 
no yery great recommendation, and certainly no very great 
compensation for a life of self-denial, if that self-denial or 
surrender of the human will were the substance of the things 
hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen. We humbly 
beg pardon of St. Paul's interpreters, and prefer to decline 
the onerous condition of self-denial, called faith, if that 
onerous condition of self-denial called faith, is to be the only 
substance of things not seen, and the only evidence of things 
hoped for. The effort would be too costly for the worth of 
the candle. St. Paul was a much better Christian philosopher. 
It would be a very remarkable condition of a scheme of salva- 
tion indeed, were the condition, which is what is required of 
man, and is the bitter of the system, made to consist in and in- 
clude the very substance of Christian hopes and aspirations, 
which hopes and consolations we have been accustomed to re- 
gard as the sweets of the system — the grace of God. The sub- 
stance of things hoped for is the grace of God, and the grace of 
God is something that God bestows, and the condition of 
this grace, — the mode by which it is to be procured, is the 
method agreed upon between God and man's Redeemer, and 
revealed in the Scriptures, and is called faith. St. Paul is 
not the only inspired writer who has called grace faith, and 
vice verso,. The truth and faithfulness of God are called faith 



150 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



(Rom. iii. 3). The state of the mind with regard to the law- 
fulness of things indifferent is called faith (Rom. xiv. 22, 23). 
The doctrines of the Gospel which is the object of faith, is 
called faith (Acts xxiv. 24 ; Phil. i. 21). The profession of 
the Gospel is called faith, and so is the truthfulness of God. 

St. Paul explains this distinction very plainly to Titus. 
What is his direction to Titus with respect to good works ? 
What does he direct this apostle to teach ? Evidently the 
necessity of good works. Necessity to what ? To salvation, 
or spiritual safety. 

" But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine, 
that the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, 
in charity, in patience. The aged women likewise, that they 
be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not 
given to much wine, teachers of good things. Young men 
likewise exhort to be sober-minded, in all things showing 
thyself a pattern of good works," — and much more to the 
same effect. Now here we have the condition of salvation. 
Here is recommended the submission of the will to the law 
of Jesus Christ. St. Paul does not mean to be inconsistent, 
and is not so when he tells Titus, a few sentences after that, 
" Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but 
according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regen- 
eration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, that being 

justified by grace we should be heirs according to the hope 
of eternal life." Here the apostle is not speaking of the con- 
dition, but of the cause of salvation. Works of righteous- 
ness, or righteous works, are not the cause of justification be- 
cause grace is. But that has nothing to do with faith as 
the condition of grace. Faith may consist in works, and 
works may be the condition of grace, and still grace may be 
the cause of our safety. There can in truth be no cause of 
safety in good works. Good works are the acts of the 
creature, and if the creature could save himself by good 



FAITH. 



151 



works, he would save himself, and his salvation would be his 
own. The cause of safety lies in God. If God can alone 
save us, it follows necessarily that good works cannot, and 
that we cannot save ourselves. But what has that to do 
with a prescribed condition of grace ? Did anybody ever 
hear of a condition being the cause of an effect ? The con- 
dition of grace is the way to procure safety, because it leads 
us to God, where we find the cause of salvation. If God be 
the cause of our safety, and we look for the cause of salva- 
tion elsewhere, that is plain idolatry. It is just as much an 
instance of idolatry in the disciple of Jesus, to consider good 
works as the cause of safety, as it is in the pagan to consider 
the cause of salvation to lie in a wooden image. The same 
remark is true of salvation by faith alone. St. Paul is guard- 
ing Titus against idolatry. He is not writing against good 
works as the condition of grace. The condition of grace is 
the way to get to the cause of grace. Faith leads us to God. 
God is the only cause of safety. 

St. Paul's distinction is just as equally explicit with regard 
to the doctrine of justification by faith alone. There is just 
as much idolatry in looking for the cause of justification in 
faith alone, however you may construe faith alone, unless 
you construe it to mean God alone, as there is in the worship 
of graven images. It is idolatry to assign the cause of safety 
to any thing below the infinite good. There is but one cause 
of all things, and that is the first cause. This first cause is 
infinite goodness or grace. — Our Saviour's conversation with 
the Roman centurion is very plain upon this point. So is the 
case of Mary Magdalen. The military officer of Capernaum 
was a pagan. He was not even a Christian, and yet our 
Saviour declared he had not " found so great faith, no, not in 
Israel." For the proof that he was no Christian, we adduce 
the fact that it was not used as an argument to induce the 
Saviour to visit him. The argument used was, that " he was 



152 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



worthy for whom he should do this, for he loveth our nation, 
and he hath built us a synagogue." But what was the cause 
of our Saviour's remark ? What observations of this pagan, 
but tolerant idolater, caused our Saviour to " marvel," and to 
say he " had not seen such faith in Israel V " For I am a 
man under authority, having soldiers under me : and I say 
to this man, go, and he goeth ; and to another, come, and he 
cometh ; and to my servant, do this, and he doeth it." It is 
impossible to give a more accurate definition of faith as the 
condition of grace, than is here given by this idolater. Our 
Saviour is a man under authority, having soldiers under him, 
and says to this man, go ; now if the man has faith, he goeth, 
or if he goeth, he has faith : he says to another, come ; if he 
has faith, he cometh : he says to his servant, do this, and if 
he has faith, he doeth it. Then faith is an obedient will. 
And yet our Saviour taught expressly and emphatically, that 
God was the cause of human safety or salvation. 

What was the case of Mary Magdalen ? It is the most 
beautiful and affecting, as well as instructive illustration of 
faith as the condition of grace, to be found in the whole 
Bible. St. Luke gives us the account in the most eloquent 
terms. " And behold a woman in the city who was a sinner, 
brought an alabaster box, and stood at his feet, and weeping, 
began to wash them and to wipe them with the hair of her 
head, and kissed his feet and anointed them with ointment." 
Our Saviour observed her conduct, and turning to his host, 
Simon, put this question to him : " There was a certain cred- 
itor which had two debtors ; the one owed five hundred 
pence, and the other fifty, and when they had nothing to 
pay he frankly forgave them both : which of them will love 
him most ? Simon answered, he to whom he forgave most. 
Thou hast judged rightly," answered our Saviour ; and turning 
to the woman, remarked to Simon, " I entered into thy house ; 
thou gavest me no water for my feet, but she has washed my 



FAITH. 



153 



feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head ; 
thou gavest me no kiss, but this woman hath not ceased to 
kiss my feet ; my hair with oil thou didst not anoint, but this 
woman hath anointed my feet with ointment, wherefore" mark 
the reasoning, wherefore " her sins are forgiven." " And 
He said unto the woman, thy faith hath saved thee." What 
faith ? The faith of active obedience, the faith of the will 
manifested or shown in kind acts. Her heart was rilled with 
love. Love is the submission of the will. Her will was sub- 
mitted to Jesus Christ, wherefore her sins were forgiven her. 
And she arose and went in peace. Our Saviour, in this long 
conversation with regard to the precise question under de- 
bate — the condition of faith — does not even once allude to it 
as a mental conviction, or as an assent, trust, or reliance, but 
as an active principle. The principle deducible from the 
case of Mary is the one of active deeds of charity and love, 
and the same effect will at this day follow, if the same amount 
of love be manifested towards one of Jesus Christ's disciples. 
This he expressly says. What you do to the least of his dis- 
ciples you do to him. 

We now approach, with the greatest diffidence and embar- 
rassment, an aspect of this subject that brings us in collision 
with the standard writers of the church within whose bosom 
we were reared and educated. 

We presume to give our view of this important doctrine, 
and no imaginable injury can ensue in the possible event that 
our view is correct. Methodist writers maintain, that works 
follow faith. From this doctrine we dissent when we main- 
tain that works declare faith. We regard an action as a 
declaration, or a manifestation of a principle, and not as a 
consequence or effect of that principle. The difference is very 
great, as will appear in the further examination of the sub- 
ject. In our judgment, Methodist writers approach nearest 
to the true scriptural elucidation of the condition of salvation, 
7* 



154 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



but err in assuming that works or religious obedience results 
from faith, as an effect producing principle, and in supposing 
the principle to exist in the mind. 

Faith and faithful actions occupy, we think, the same relation 
to each other that the bird upon the wing does to the law of 
flying, or a rebounding ball to elasticity, or falling water to 
gravitation. Faithful actions do not follow, but in the language 
of St. James, they " show" faith, just as falling water " shows" 
gravitation, or the flying bird the law of flying. Faith is an 
active principle, just as elasticity is an active principle. Hence 
it dresses itself in an action. It declares itself in a good work. 

Mr. Benson, a learned commentator upon the holy Scriptures, 
defines faith to be " the evidence, the conviction, the persua- 
sion or demonstration wrought in the mind, of things not seen, 
invisible and eternal, of God and the things of God ; giving 
us an assurance in these, in some respects, equal to that which 
our natural senses give us of the things of this visible and 
temporal world." 

Mr. Wesley says, " faith, in general, is a divine, supernat- 
ural eXsyxog, evidence, or conviction of things." 

Mr. Watson says, " faith is presented to us under two lead- 
ing views. The first is that of assent or persuasion ; the sec 
ond, that of confidence or reliance." Here is evidently a 
distinction without a difference. Is not assent or persuasion 
but other words to express confidence or reliance of the mind ? 
If the mind yields assent, or is persuaded, is not the assent 
and persuasion the confidence and reliance of the mind ? 
Mr. Watson mistrusts his own definition, and says afterwards, 
that faith combines " belief with trust." Trust is not a mental 
quality ; it is a state of the will. So is belief. Belief and 
trust are identical. As far as a man believes, he trusts ; and 
as far as he trusts he believes. 

Dr. Clarke says, the " act of faith is a man's own ;" that 
the " grace to believe" is " the gift of God ;" and yet, that 



FAITH. 



155 



" the power to believe may be present long before it is exer- 
cised.'' In other words, that a sinner may have the power 
to believe before he performs the act of faith, which is his 
own act, and that the grace to believe is the gift of God. 

The action of faith (for there is no distinction between an 
act and an action, and they both mean works), we are taught 
to believe, "is a man's own." He performs this act apart 
from the grace of God, by natural ability. Then the " grace 
to believe" " is the gift of God ;" yet, the " power to believe" 
a man has " long before he exercises it." 

Then, according to this reasoning, a sinner has a natural 
" power to believe," distinct from the " grace to believe," which 
is the gift of God. What can man do with his natural 
" power to believe," until he obtains the " grace to believe P 3 
Can he exercise it \ If he can exercise the " power to be- 
lieve," where is the use of the "grace to believe ?" Whatever 
a man has a power to do, he can do. If he cannot, he does 
not have the power. His willingness is another question. 
" The act of faith is a man's own." Then man has the abil- 
ity to perform the act of faith, and he has the power to be- 
lieve long before he exercises it, and yet the grace to believe 
is the gift of God ! But, is there not something very singu- 
lar in the phrase, "grace to believe?" By grace, we under- 
stand the grace of God, or the righteousness of God — as 
grace comes from no other quarter ; and by belief, we under- 
stand the condition of salvation. 

From this we infer, that the sinner has the grace of God 
before he performs the condition of grace. Grace precedes 
belief. If this be so, the favor of God is not dependent upon 
the performance of the condition of the Gospel that we call 
faith. That theologian would render mankind a service, who 
would show any difference between the " power to believe" 
and " the grace to believe," upon the supposition that there is 
but one first and only cause of action, of power, and of grace. 



156 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



According to this theory, God " no more believes for a man 
than he repents for him ;" and yet the " grace to believe is 
the gift of God." Can any two propositions be in more pre- 
cise opposition than the one, " that God no more believes for 
a man than he repents for him," and the other, that u God 
grants to man the grace to believe ?" If man cannot believe 
without the grace to believe, it is the grace that enables him 
to believe. Then God enabled man to believe. If so, how 
can it be said that God no more believes for a man than he 
repents for him ? 

In defining faith as a condition of grace, or, in other words, 
as the method by which we are to come into favor with God, 
instituted in the original covenant, respect must always be had 
to the primeval capabilities of Adam, and his incapabilities in 
the several situations in which he was subsequently placed. 

The reasoning faculties of Adam were not destroyed or inter- 
fered with in the fall, and it thence follows that that disastrous 
event did not render him less capable of doing every thing- 
required of the human intellect that was required in the first 
instance. 

So far as the mind of Adam is to be considered in this in- 
vestigation, it is plain that it was the same identical, unin- 
jured reasoning faculty, in the three several situations in 
which he was placed ; that is to say, in his innocent state, in 
his fallen state, and in his restored state. We do not say that 
the condition of salvation has no relation to, or connection 
with the mind of man ; but we affirm, that the mind of man 
is incapable of performing a condition of any character de- 
pendent upon choice. The moral probationer must believe 
that the condition of salvation is really what it purports to 
be, and this conviction follows, from the fact that the state- 
ment is true, and that faith is the condition of the system of sal- 
vation. The existence of the fact that faith is the condition of 
the salvation of Jesus Christ, is the only plea and justification 



FAITH. 



157 



for the belief of that statement ; and the conviction that this 
faith is the condition of the system of Christ, is not a step in 
advance of the conviction that the system is the system of 
J esus Christ. The belief in the authenticity of the Scriptures 
is a much more necessary and important act of belief than 
the firm conviction that faith is the condition of the system ; 
because a belief in the divine origin of the Scriptures, setting 
forth a salvation system, includes the belief in the existence 
of a condition of that system, since a condition is a necessary 
and unavoidable consequence of such a system of moral pro- 
bation under it. 

We regard man as a human will placed on probation, with 
a written probationary system containing a condition which it 
can either choose to obey or choose to disobey. The will 
would be incompetent to know how to make a choice, 
unless it had a certain amount of intellectual light, a certain 
capacity to perceive established truths. Without a certain 
amount of intelligence, it could not even know that it had to 
make a choice, rnflch less make a wise or a foolish choice. 
When a probationer chooses not to obey the condition, he 
makes a foolish choice ; and why ? Because he prefers evil, 
when his intelligence informs him he could have chosen good. 
The experiment of moral agency could not have been made 
with agents that could not reason, and could not draw con- 
clusions. Hence, man reasons naturally ; but he does not 
naturally choose good. What a man can do naturally, if by 
naturally we mean an ability apart from the Gospel, cannot 
be the condition of a salvation system, because God enacts 
natural laws ; and if man could perform the condition nat- 
urally, it would be similar to his walking in an upright posi- 
tion — it would be the effect of an efficient cause. 

Mr. Wesley has treated this subject with less than his usual 
acuteness. Mr. Benson adopts Mr. Wesley's view, but Mr. 
Watson does not. Mr. Wesley says that faith is a super- 



158 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



natural evidence of things, and Mr. "Watson, that it consists 
in conviction and trust ; and that that part of faith consisting 
in conviction, may exist in devils. Hence, in Mr. Watson's 
opinion, it cannot be altogether as Mr. Wesley thinks, a su- 
pernatural evidence ; as it is not to be supposed God would 
bestow, in this regard, a supernatural evidence upon devils. 
Mr. W r esley was led away by the interpretation given to the 
language of St. Paul, that faith was the evidence of things 
not seen. 

Faith produces a " supernatural divine, sXsyxog, evidence or 
conviction of things not seen, not discoverable by our bodily 
senses as being either past, future, or spiritual." Faith has 
this effect, because it is the condition of the system of Jesus 
Christ that was originally introduced for the purpose of fur- 
nishing grace to the nude soul of man ; and when this grace 
is possessed, it is a supernatural agent or motive principle 
added to man. 

A cogent reason why faith cannot consist in a conviction or 
evidence of the mind is, that the condition would not be a 
common and equal condition, but would vary and change al- 
most ad infinitum, to be accommodated to the almost infinite 
variety of intellectual power possessed by the different chil- 
dren of Adam. Not so with the will. 

If faith consist in a conviction of the mind, a case of 
apostasy would be impossible. If it consists in a supernat- 
ural evidence, no man could ever disbelieve a supernatural 
evidence, whatever might be his moral conduct, so long as it 
did not injure the reasoning faculties. But the greatest and 
most serious objection that can be urged against the doctrine 
that faith is a supernatural conviction of the mind, grows out 
of the fact, that it offers a premium for self-delusion and 
fanaticism, and is calculated to destroy the practical charac- 
ter of the Christian system. 

It is the emphatic remark of a living modern reviewer, 



FAITH. 



159 



himself a Methodist, " that Methodist ministers, even at the 
present day, do not sufficiently guard the emotional by the 
practical ; and the consequence is, that not only extrav- 
agance is witnessed, but positive injury to the cause of 
religion." 

This grave observation furnishes food for serious reflection. 
It is to be allowed that this confession, made upon deliberation, 
was extracted from this Methodist clergyman by sore causes 
that had not any less escaped his regret than eluded his dis- 
cernment. The remedy he suggests is, that the emotional must 
be counterpoised by the practical ; that is to say, that they 
must insist, in addition to faith as a supernatural conviction or 
evidence of the mind, upon the discharge of the active duties 
of Christianity. But it should be remembered that the source 
of the two injunctions is unlike. God requires a supernatural 
conviction of the mind, and the ministers of the church recom- 
mend the discharge of the active duties of Christianity. The 
one cannot be disregarded without sin, because it is a divine 
requirement ; but what are we to say of the other ? We are 
to understand by the " emotional," the enjoyment of religion, 
that supernatural conviction and evidence of things not seen ; 
and by the " practical," the practice of the duties of religion. 
If we are to counterpoise the emotional by the practical, as 
recommended, we are to recommend to the Christian who is 
enjoying religion too extravagantly, to check it by some re- 
ligious duty. Is this not equivalent to extinguishing flame 
by adding fuel ? 

But the emotional part of religion is the grace of God. 
Then we are to arrest the bestowal of the grace of God, by 
practising religious duties he has enjoined. This seems to be 
reversing the order of the economy of grace. We inferred that 
the grace of God that constitutes religious enjoyment, was a 
consequence that waited upon Christian fidelity. 

How are Ave to account for the advice of a grave and high- 



160 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



ly-educated clergyman, to counterpoise the emotional, the 
enjoyment of the grace of God by the practice of the duties 
of Christianity ? Certainly the secret of his advice grows out 
of his creed. He considers the condition of grace a mental 
state, and in order to comply with the condition we must in- 
crease the mental state. He does not consider the practice 
of Christian duties as the only declaration of faith the Chris- 
tian can make. The u extravagance" alluded to by this 
writer, that is to be counterpoised by the practical discharge 
of Christian duties, may find its origin, and its condemnation, 
in the folly of substituting internal convictions for the condi- 
tion of grace, instead of the faithful observance of the com- 
mands of Christ. It is readily admitted by this writer, and 
every one will agree with him, that great injury to the cause 
of religion may result from the mistake of substituting inter- 
nal feelings, so liable to run into the vivid dreams of fancy, 
and internal convictions, so liable to degenerate into fanati- 
cism, for the stern and sober realities of an active Christian 
life. Nothing could have dictated the advice to guard the 
emotional by the practical, but the danger, but too apparent, 
that excited religionists might be content with the exu- 
berance of a heated fancy, and neglect the weightier matters 
of the active duties that belong to the several relations of 
life. To be a good neighbor, and an industrious citizen, and 
a useful' man, as required by the condition, or as compre- 
hended in the condition, is much less fascinating than the 
excitement of an animal sensibility. In opposition to this 
advice St. Paul says, " Quench not the spirit." To define 
the condition of Christ J esus' system of religion, as a convic- 
tion of the mind, or a process of the intellect, is to divest it 
of its practical character ; to make it the most visionary 
scheme that ever the brain of speculator conceived. To say 
that the duties that he has enjoined are in no way connected 
with the condition of salvation than as they follow or flow 



FAITH. 



161 



from it, is to assume what has every appearance of very seri- 
ously and alarmingly divorcing the practical from the con- 
ception of faith, and giving full reign to the monitions of the 
mind in regard to spiritual things. Mr. Fletcher calls " obedi- 
ence the fruit of faith," regarding faith as a supernatural con- 
viction. A conviction of the mind amounting to u demon- 
stration :" a conviction of the mind amounting to the " super- 
natural," is what a sinner has to acquire in order to comply 
with the law of grace, so that he may obtain the grace of 
God ! The difficulty of reconciling the admitted necessity of 
the Christian's active pursuit of grace, and absolute import- 
ance of discharging the imperative practical precepts of the 
Gospel, with the explanation of faith as a preternatural 
conviction of the mind amounting to demonstration, consti- 
tutes a standing gordian knot, that no acuteness of ingenuity 
has been hitherto able to untie. 

Mr. Wesley says, in emphatic language, that faith is the 
" only necessary condition of justification," and that faith is a 
" supernatural conviction." 

If this be so, the discharge of Christian duties is an unne- 
cessary incumbrance. The conclusion is not forced, but plain 
and irresistible. Who can deny it logically ? 

There can be no fairer method to arrive at the correct- 
ness of a definition of a word, than by substituting the defini- 
tion for the word itself. Faith, it is said, has a certain 
meaning. Now this meaning of faith will make just as 
good sense, if it is substituted in the Scriptures for the word 
faith, where this word is used to imply the condition ot 
grace, as the word faith itself will make. If the definition 
makes nonsense, the definition is untrue. Let us try in this 
way the definition of faith above given. Faith is a divine 
supernatural evidence or conviction of things not seen. 

The 8th verse of the 2d chapter of Ephesians we would 
have to read in this way : 



162 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

By grace are ye saved through a divine supernatural evi- 
dence or conviction of things not seen, and that not of your- 
selves ; it is the gift of God. The apostle says it is the gift 
of God. Does he mean the grace or the divine supernatural 
evidence ? He cannot mean both, because if he did he would 
have used the plural pronoun, they, and as the conviction is 
divine and supernatural, the grace, it is to be concluded, can- 
not be — the grace must be human. Hence, the definition 
making nonsense, the definition must be wrong. 

The reader will bear in mind the distinction between the 
evidence or conviction of things not seen, and the things not 
seen themselves. We are willing to try our definition by 
this law. 

It is necessary to observe that the submission of the will 
is the true definition of love in a creature. Filial, fraternal, 
social love, are nothing but the voluntary submission of the 
volition. There is a submission of the will and there is a 
manifestation of that submission in actions. A submitted 
will voluntarily offered, if the submission be radical and true, 
is under a moral necessity to manifest itself in an action in 
keeping with the submission. It could not act otherwise 
until the character, which is the purpose of the will, changed. 
The will would have to become otherwise than submissive, 
before a different or unloving action could be brought forth. 

A. loves God. Then his will is submitted to God. His 
purpose is given up to God's purpose. Now, so long as A. 
loves God, or so long as his will is submitted to God's will, 
he will necessarily perform actions pleasing to God, or acts 
that he believes to be pleasing to God, having the motive. 
But when A.'s will is not submitted to God, it will not per- 
form actions to please God, but to please himself ; hence he 
does not love God. Love, then, is the submission of the 
volition. This point will be discussed fully under the head 
of the will. 



FAITH. 



163 



Now if the submission of the volition means love, then 
we have high authority for saying that love is a fulfilling of 
the law. 

" By grace are ye saved, through supreme love of God, 
exhibited in obedience to the commands of Jesus Christ, 
and that not of yourselves ; it is the gift of God." The sal- 
vation is the gift of God. God gives salvation, which 
is the Christian religion, in consequence of grace which 
is procured by the creature, who submits his will to the 
will of Christ Jesus, in all the thoughts and acts of his 
life, being an obedience to the commands of the mediator 
Our Saviour, speaking to Peter on the water, would say, 
O thou of little divine supernatural evidence or convic- 
tion of things not seen ! Xow if faith be the condition of the 
salvation system of the Saviour, he must have procured a 
very peculiar condition that can be classified with little, less, 
least. If the condition that Peter was called upon to comply 
with was little, somebody else must have been called upon 
to comply with a larger and some with a smaller condition 
A little condition of salvation is a remarkable reading 
When Peter was charged with little faith, he was charged 
with little or defective obedience. The Gospel has but one 
and a common condition. 

The doctrine built upon the definition that faith is a con- 
viction of the mind, maintains that works follow faith. L 
faith be a supernatural conviction, and works follow faith, 
then the works of the Christian are involuntary, and are the 
works of God just as much as the cause is, or they are dis 
cretionary. An effect is a fixed and involuntary sequence. 
If faith as a condition of the mind be the only condition, and 
works are the consequence, works are decreed consequences, 
and no Christian need put himself to any trouble or agita- 
tion of mind about his conduct, — conduct ranging itself ac- 
cording to a law of God, establishing causation. 



164 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



In other matters than with reference to faith we have no 
difficulty in understanding the law of causation. If obe- 
dience is the effect of faith, the law of causation is established 
between faith and works. It is a law of God in the natural 
world that the sun is the cause of light. So long as we 
have the sun, we are sure of having light, because we have 
confidence in the law of causation. And so of every other 
effect of any given cause. But those persons who believe 
that works follow faith, vehemently, and not more vehe- 
mently than inconsistently, exhort Christians to conform tl 
conduct to the laws of Christianity. There is a strange dis- 
regard of logical accuracy in urging persons to obey Christ 
in order to become Christians in the first instance, if reli- 
gion cannot be procured by obedience, but by a supernatural 
conviction. If a supernatural conviction be the condition, 
it would be as profitable to study and obey the laws of 
Swedenborg, and thereby expect salvation, as to study and 
obey the laws of the Saviour, since the supernatural convic- 
tion is the only condition. 

It is a doctrine of Methodist writers of high repute, that 
justifying, saving faith, consists in a monition of the mind. 
They do not suppose that faith is identical with grace. In 
the language of Dr. Clarke, " God no more believes for 
man than he repents for him." But they recognize faith, in 
the words of Dr. Clarke, as a " demonstration of things not 
seen in the words of Mr. Benson, as " the trust and reli- 
ance of the mind ;" and in the language of Mr. Wesley, as a 
supernatural evidence or conviction. The least that can be 
said of these definitions is the want of consistency. Mr. 
Clarke does not think that God believes for a man, and Mr. 
Wesley thinks it is a divine conviction. 

No philosopher of accurate knowledge will allow himself 
to believe that there is any difference between a conviction 
of the mind, a state of the mind, a deduction of the mind, a 



FAITH. 



165 



perception of the mind ; and, if the mind can feel, between the 
trust, the reliance, the confidence of the mind. They are all 
terms to denote an idea, a thought, or the perception of a 
supposed subsisting truth. The error of John Agricola, 
contemporaneous with Luther, and the father of the doctrine 
of antinomianism, and of his followers called " opposers of 
the law," consisted in contending that obedience was of no 
use or obligation under the Gospel dispensation. Led away 
by the doctrine of Luther, that salvation was of faith alone, 
and that works therefore constituted no part of the condi- 
tion, and running the doctrine to its logical consequences, he 
insisted that it was useless to bestow any unnecessary regard 
upon conduct, or to place any profitless restraints upon the 
enjoyment of the world, since conduct, adjudged to be good, 
did not contribute in any degree to the justification of the 
soul. He was only guilty of running Luther's doctrine to 
its logical consequences. He only contended that, since 
faith, having no respect to works, was the only cause of 
justification, and since good works were of no advantage, it 
was perfectly logical to maintain that bad works could have 
no counter effect upon justification. His reasoning was cer- 
tainly surprisingly accurate, if his theology was not very sound. 

Luther carried the doctrine of salvation by faith alone to 
its logical consequences, even to the entire exclusion of the 
utility of good works in the work of religion or grace, and 
although their obligation and importance were insisted upon, 
aside from the subject of justification, the logical inference 
that they were neither obligatory or important as respected 
the salvation of the soul, was irresistible. It was this irresis- 
tible logical inference that betrayed John Agricola into his 
system of Antinomianism. Mr. Watson, in writing upon this 
subject in his admirable theological institutes, says, " that in 
every discourse of St. Paul, as to our justification, faith and 
works are opposed to each other, and further, that his argu- 



166 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



ment necessarily excludes works of evangelical obedience . . . 
. . . — works of obedience however they may be performed — 
whether by the assistance of the spirit or without that assist- 
ance ; whether they spring from faith or any other principle, 
these are mere circumstances which alter not the nature of 
the acts themselves ; they are works still, and are opposed by 
the apostle to grace and faith. 4 And if by grace, then it is 
no more of works ; otherwise grace is no more grace ; but if 
it be of works, then it is no more grace, otherwise work is no 
more work.' " — Rom. xi. 6. We leave out the preposition 
" of " interpolated into the text by Mr. Watson. 

It is a stigma upon St. Paul to suppose that he ever op- 
posed works to grace and faith, from which it is our purpose 
to seek to rescue him forever. Were St. Paul especially to 
oppose works and faith, it would be an instance of the most 
glaring inconsistency. No writer has more insisted upon the 
importance and obligation of Christian conduct in the sys- 
tem of Jesus Christ than he. This apostle has simply been 
misunderstood. He opposed the oner it of works to faith 
and grace. He endeavored to save the Christian world from 
falling into the error into which the Roman Catholics have 
fallen, of thinking that there was any merit in works, or that 
the merit of works contributed to the justification of the soul. 
Nothing justifies the soul but grace, procured by performing 
a condition consisting in good works, whose merit is derived 
and consists in the merit of the atoning sacrifice of Christ. 
This is apparent from the very extract taken by Mr. Watson 
from his writings. 

" Even so then at this present time also, there is a rem- 
nant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, 
then it is no more of works." He is certainly alluding to 
the cause of the election of grace. What is the cause of 
grace electing, is the point he is seeking to evolve, and not 
what is the condition of grace. If men are chosen, or 



FAITH. 



167 



received, or elected, because of grace, it could not be because 
of works ; because, argues lie, if they were elected because 
of works, then it was not because of grace ; and if because of 
works, or if works were the cause of their election, works 
would no longer be works, but grace, or would possess grace. 
The reasoning is plain and consistent. The idea St. Paul 
wishes to convey is, that since we are saved by grace, it 
is not our works that save us, it is not our works that are 
the cause of our safety, but grace, for if our works (by which 
he means the efficacy or efficiency of works to produce salva- 
tion) — for if our works save us, then salvation would no more 
be of grace ; and if our works save us, works would be no 
more works but grace, because they would be the original 
cause of a divine effect. The expression that works would 
be grace, implies that works would be possessed of merit to 
save, or would be the meritorious cause of salvation. This 
dispenses with God's original and exclusive agency in salva- 
tion. St. Paul's reasoning would apply with equal force 
against the doctrine of salvation by faith alone, considered as 
a conviction of the mind. If that be the cause, it makes an 
original God out of it. This point will be examined else- 
where. 

His reasoning is not directed against works as works, but 
against the merit of works as the procuring cause of justifica- 
tion. But this has nothing to do with the condition of sal- 
vation which Christ has established, by which we may pro- 
cure the grace that saves us, or that is the cause of our safety ; 
because, as we have already shown, the condition of an effect 
is not, and never can be, the cause of the effect. Grace is the 
cause, and good tvorks is the condition. St. Paul in his wri- 
tings insists upon a consistent godly life, not as a duty distinct 
from the salvation of the soul, but as essential to its salvation ; 
so that a disregard of good works results in damnation. On 
this point he is as plain as the sun at noon. But, although 



168 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



the avoidance of evil, which is but another form of words to 
express good works is absolutely necessary to salvation — (we 
wish we had stronger language than absolute necessity to ex- 
press the essential prerequisite necessity of good works to sal- 
vation) — still we do not contend, and we think St. Paul never 
contended, that the merit of good works was to be regarded 
as contributory to salvation by an inherent, original, causing 
power in it ; or that good works was the cause of salvation. 
We must not be misled by a form of words, to entertain an 
idea other than the true one. By good works, we are simply 
to understand the avoidance of evil. The only way to avoid 
evil, is by good works, or the choice of good. Good works 
are contrasted with evil works, just as good is contrasted with 
evil. Man cannot say that he will disregard good works, 
and let evil or sin alone. His refusal to perform good works 
is sin, or the necessary choice of evil ; and hence the man 
that has not good works necessarily has bad works — as the 
man that is not good, is necessarily sinful. The question 
then with regard to good works is merely, is it necessary to 
avoid sin in order to obtain and retain grace ? Suppose this 
question had been propounded to St. Paul : Is it not neces- 
sary — is it not absolutely necessary to avoid sin in order to 
be a Christian ? This brings out the point in controversy. 
How would St. Paul have answered the question ? Would he 
have answered with Mr. Wesley that it was not necessary, 
since the only condition of salvation is a supernatural convic- 
tion ; or with Benson, that the only condition is a demonstra- 
tion wrought in the mind ; or with Mr* Watson, that salva- 
tion is of faith alone, considered as a mental trust, and that 
the avoidance of sin is a mere circumstance called works, and 
is opposed by the apostle to grace and faith ? The prepos- 
terousness of the questions is their own answer. It is so 
necessary to choose good, by the necessary avoidance of evil, 
that there is not a saint in heaven, from the thief down, who 



FAITH. 



169 



is not there because of good works, but not because of the 
merit of good works. The choice of good is a good work, 
and the very first step a sinner takes on his Christian 
pilgrimage is a good work, since it is a good choice. It is 
utterly impossible for a sinner to make the very first initia- 
tory step in a Christian career, without that- step's being a 
good work. Is not a first step necessary ? — a first action ? 
And if the first step, or the first voluntary motion in the ca- 
reer of Christianity be necessarily a good work, since it is not 
a bad work and is necessary — are not good works necessary 
to justification, and if so, is not Mr. Wesley mistaken ? 

The point of distinction then between Martin Luther and 
John Agricola was, that the former contended that the only 
condition of justification was a conviction of the mind, and 
that good works were good things and very advisable, but 
having no connection with salvation ; and the latter, that if the 
only condition of justification was a conviction of the mind, 
and good works formed no part of the condition, good works 
could not be necessary to justification. It requires no discern- 
ment to see who had the advantage of the argument. 

Methodist divines maintain, that obedience is a consequence 
of the true faith, and is of divine obligation. They have in 
some degree improved upon the theology, if not upon the 
logic of Luther. But if the avoidance of sin be of divine 
obligation, and the only condition of justification be faith 
alone, can men obtain justification by a disregard of a di- 
vine obligation ? The affirmative is the logical reply. " The 
truth then is," says Mr. "Watson, " that faith does not pro- 
duce obedience by any virtue there is in it per se, nor as it 
supposes a previous renewal of heart ; but as it unites to 
Christ, gives us a personal interest in the covenant of God's 
mercy, and obtains for us, as an accomplished condition, our 
justification, from which flow the gift of the Holy Ghost and 
the regeneration of our nature. The strength of faith lies not 

8 



170 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



then in what it is in itself, but in what it interests us in ; it 
necessarily leads to good works, because it necessarily leads to 
justification, on which immediately follows our new creation 
in Christ Jesus to good works, that we may walk in them.'' 
— Theo. Insti. 447. In discussing this subject, we prefer 
plainer words and less circumlocution. We prefer to say the 
avoidance of sin, instead of good works. He who avoids evil, 
necessarily performs good works. The good works is the 
necessary consequence, the unavoidable alternative of avoid- 
ance of evil. We understand Mr. Watson then to say, that 
faith does not produce good works itself, but that it does 
something for us, which something produces good works 
necessarily. He says, it necessarily leads to good works, be- 
cause it necessarily leads to justification, since justification 
necessarily leads to good works. He makes faith the remote 
cause of our ceasing to sin. We cease to sin, necessarily 
because we are justified ; and justification is the effect of faith 
considered as a conviction of the mind ! And he makes re- 
generation the effect of justification. Then it follows, that a 
conviction of the mind produces justification, and justification 
produces the cessation of sin necessarily, and then follows 
regeneration. Then our ceasing to sin is the effect of an effect, 
and the original cause of these two effects is a condition of 
the mind that is supernatural ! ! Mr. Watson would not 
have fallen into these strange fancies if he had used plain and 
direct language. If faith does not produce obedience by any 
virtue there is in it per se, it cannot be said to produce obe- 
dience at all, or by any virtue there is in it, ex se. The 
remoteness of an effect does not make it other than an effect. 
If an effect may be traced through a hundred intervening 
incidents that are effects of the original cause, this last remote 
effect is as much the effect of the original cause as the first 
effect in the series. Because an effect is remote, is not a rea- 
son why it is not an effect. If faith as the first cause, pro- 



FAITH, 



171 



duces good works as a remote effect, it cannot be said with 
any logical precision that it does not produce them " by any 
virtue there is in it per se." There must be a virtue in it per 
se, in order to produce a remote effect. Let us then take it 
in argument for granted, as Mr. Watson contends, that faith 
" necessarily leads to good works, because it necessarily leads 
to justification." Then faith is the cause, and the necessary 
cause of good works, if it be the remote cause. Then it fol- 
lows that we cease from sin as a necessary consequence result- 
ing from the possession of faith, and that faith precedes good 
works, or the cessation of sin. Is not this as perfect reversal 
of the order of salvation as can possibly be conceived ? 

Thus we are to regard faith as something supernatural ly 
produced in the mind of a sinner, necessarily producing jus- 
tification : necessarily producing a godly life. Man is a 
passive agent in respect to a supernatural production. He 
cannot work out his own salvation, because salvation is an 
effect of a supernatural production, of which God alone can 
be the author. 

But the argument might arise between a Methodist 
divine and an Antinomian. The follower of Agricola would 
insist that the law of causation does not subsist between faith 
as the condition of grace, considered as a supernatural mental 
state and good works. The opposite of this would be main- 
tained by the Methodist divine. Now this is purely a philo- 
sophical question, depending upon the laws of philosophy and 
upon testimony and experience. These two questions would 
arise in the discussion of the main point. 

1. "What is the source of an action ? 

2. Is it the experience of Christians who have received the 
gift of this production of supernatural conviction that a godly 
life is a necessary, and if necessary, unavoidable consequence ? 

The Antinomian unquestionably would have the better of 
the argument drawn from either logic or experience, if he can 



172 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



prove from a consideration of the principles of man's nature, 
that an action is not and cannot be the effect of a mental con- 
viction. And he gains the argument if he can prove from his 
own, or from the experience of others, who may be allowed to 
be veracious witnesses, that the discharge of the practical 
duties of Christianity is not an irresistible, unavoidable, and 
necessary consequence of such a conviction of the mind as may 
have produced pardon of past sins, but as matter requiring a 
fixed purpose. The question whence comes an action is dis- 
cussed under the head of the will. Actions that are volun- 
tary cannot spring from a supernatural conviction. Before we 
proceed farther with the discussion, we pause, to press upon 
the reader's attention again, that the object of the Christian 
system of religion is to confer upon a sinner the Christian 
religion. This system procured by J esus Christ, and variously 
denominated the Gospel, the covenant, the plan of salvation, 
<fec, is a system of divine laws revealed to man, and commit- 
ted to writing by inspired men selected for that purpose — their 
treatises disclose the laws of this system. They are like all 
other laws of God, only that they are applicable to free instead 
of fixed or material agents or objects. The object of the laws 
of this system, is to enable a sinner in virtue of it to obtain 
the Christian religion. "What is this religion that is called 
Christian ? It is precisely the same religion that Adam pos- 
sessed at his creation, when he became a living soul. It is 
nothing but the grace of God. The grace of God and the 
Christian religion, and the religion that Adam possessed in 
his primeval state, mean the same thing, because there is 
but one and the same God that grants it. This religion 
is a distinct motive principle of the soul from any the created 
soul possesses, or from the natural principles of the soul ; 
so that when the soul has this motive principle it is said 
to be alive, and when it has it not, it is said to be dead. 
It was this motive principle, this grace of God, this reK- 



FAITH. 



173 



gion that Adam lost, and as a consequence he died, that 
is, he lost the motive principle that gave him spiritual life, 
lost the grace of God, lost his religion. The object of the 
system of Christ, or of the mediatorial system, is to restore 
this motive principle not natural to the soul, this grace of 
God, this religion. It is called the Christian religion, be- 
cause it is produced by Christ's system. Now when a sinner 
becomes a Christian, he procures the life of the soul, or the 
grace of God : hence he is said to be born again. What is 
the object of procuring this religion, this grace of God, this 
new motive power not natural to the soul \ Why undoubt- 
edly to love God with a supreme voluntary affection ; because 
this supreme voluntary affection is a full compliance upon 
man's part with every law of God. 

Hence, it is evident there are but two states in the Chris- 
tian life. The first is when he obtains the Christian religion, 
or the grace of God, or the new birth, or the new life of the 
soul ; and the second is when, by the advantage of the sys- 
tem, its condition, and its means, and agencies, he cultivates 
and improves this new principle, new motive power, this 
Christian religion, to such an extent that he can love God. 
supremely. 

The first is called Justification, and the second Sanctification. 

A sinner is justified when he becomes a Christian. He 
could not become a Christian without justification. Justifica- 
tion, and Christianity, and regeneration are synonymous terms. 
When he becomes a Christian, he has the grace of God ; and 
the grace of God is the regeneration or justification of the 
soul, and is its qualification for heaven. 

Sanctification is not the qualification for heaven ; it is only 
the growth of the qualification ; it is an additional capability 
to enjoy heaven. The Christian religion secures heaven ; and 
without it none can be saved. This religion is God's grace. 

It requires much more of the grace of God to obtain sane- 



174 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

tification than it does to obtain the Christian religion. Has 
a sinner the grace of God before he is converted ? Undoubt- 
edly. It requires a certain amount to justify, to secure justi- 
fication. Justification is the effect of grace. A sinner has 
the grace of God when he sincerely delivers his first prayer ; 
but he is not conscious of it until justification takes place. 
God's promise is, that if we will approach him, he will ap- 
proach us. We can explain this principle by an illustration 
drawn from a natural mirror. A man may stand so far from 
a mirror that he cannot see his face in it. In order to see his 
face, he has to approach it; he approaches the mirror by 
walking ; we approach God by the faithful observance of the 
commands of Jesus Christ. Now, as the man approaches the 
mirror, his face in the mirror approaches him. He may con- 
tinue the approach, and the face in the mirror meets him. He 
may recede, and the face in the mirror recedes. So it is with 
God and the mediatorial probationer. God meets us. We 
approach God, at first, at a great distance ; we obey mediato- 
rial commands, and nothing can seem, at first, so foolish and 
unprofitable. God is at a distance because we are at a dis- 
tance. We continue with increased fidelity to approach him 
by obeying the Saviour; we find the duties less foolish, and 
more interesting. After a while we become absorbed in them. 
We find feelings coming upon us, of the existence of which 
we never dreamed. The nearer we approach, the darker 
seems the future, and deeper the load of sin. We get into 
a state of the most terrible excitement, called contrition. This 
condition is the grace of God, and is the evidence of our ap- 
proach. We are much nearer God than when we first began ; 
and this nearness of the divine light and purity is the cause 
of our wretchedness. After a while, in the course of an in- 
creased obedience, or increased willingness, the darkness dis- 
appears, and Christ takes us by the hand, as he took Peter by 
the hand, and we feel our sins pardoned ; w r e walk upon the 



FAITH. 



175 



water of grace ; we are justified ; we have obtained the Chris- 
tian religion ; w T e have been born into the kingdom of God ; 
we have a live soul, in having grace or God, and are hence 
new creatures in that regard. If we are saved by grace, we 
must obtain grace with the very first effort. The very first 
effort is as much an act of faith as the last. The humble, 
contrite prayer of the broken-hearted sinner, distressed on ac- 
count of the weight of sin, is as much an act of faith as the 
exulting shout of a liberated soul passing to the permanent 
skies. Does it not follow with great conclusiveness, that if 
grace, procured in the Christian conflict of choosing good and 
avoiding sin, under the auspices of Christ, and in conformity 
with the rules of his system, is the procuring cause of sancti- 
fication, that grace must also be the procuring cause of the 
Christian religion, or of justification? If the very last act of 
the Christian pilgrimage is an act of faith, is not the very first 
of the same character ? An act of faith ! What is an act of 
faith ? An act of faith is a faithful action, is it not ? What 
metaphysical scissors can distinguish between an act of faith 
and a faithful action, or a good work ? Who speaks of acts 
of faith ? Methodist writers ; they all speak of an act of faith. 
Dr. Clarke says an " act of faith is a man's own act." Much, 
very much depends upon the answer to the inquiry, What is 
an act oi faith? The supposition of the possibility of the ex- 
istence of such a thing as an act of faith is the most conclu- 
sive proof of the utter futility of the definition of faith as a 
supernatural conviction of invisible things. The most acute 
logician can find no difference between acts of faith and good 
works. These writers are led imperceptibly to abandon their 
own theory. Whoever recognizes the possibility of an act of 
faith, abandons the doctrine of salvation by faith alone. An 
act of faith does not differ from the performance of a good 
action. Good actions are good works. A faithful act is a good 
work, and an act of faith is a good work. Hence, Dr. Clarke 



176 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



and many Methodist writers have practically and virtually 
abandoned the doctrine of salvation by faith alone. It is well 
they have abandoned it, because it is radically untrue and 
idolatrous. God is the only cause of our safety. It seems to 
be very generally received doctrine, that in the business of 
human salvation, the prevenient assistance of the Holy Spirit 
is an important element. But how can the Holy Spirit assist 
in procuring for a sinner a supernatural conviction ? A divine 
supernatural conviction is the work of God ; and the doctrine 
of assistance rendered to God by the Holy Spirit is not a re- 
vealed doctrine. 

We admit always and emphatically, that the Spirit of God 
renders an assistance german to a spirit, or such an assistance 
as a spirit can render to a sinner while he is a sinner, and as- 
sists him, as he becomes a saint, in performing the condition ; 
but we are to remember that the assistance of the Spirit is of 
a peculiar character. The assisting grace of the Spirit is con- 
fined to the office of the Spirit as the witness of holy things. 
We must connect this assistance with consciousness, and must 
disconnect it from any relation to the act of man, and not regard 
it as in any degree impulsive, or as any direct invigoration of 
the principle of action. This can never be directly done with- 
out disturbing free agency. The assistance of the Spirit is a 
reflected, derived, and consequential assistance. As the wit- 
ness of God, it may plead spiritual things ; it may encourage, 
by faithful representation of the invisible things of God ; arid 
through consciousness, this conversation of holy communion 
may be maintained ; but it is not by any communication of 
motive power, such as naturally exists in man, or such as may 
be added by the imparted grace of God. 

The assistance by way of moral evidence made more glow- 
ing, is only the assistance of an existing truth presented, and 
not any communication of moral power. 

We do not wish to be understood as questioning the power 



FAITH. 



177 



of the grace of God to produce in the soul streams of joy the 
world can neither give nor take away, nor its ability to pro- 
duce the most tranquil as well as ecstatic happiness, or to pro- 
duce an increased spiritual strength, confirmed trust, unfalter- 
ing love, unshaken confidence, and invigorated reliance upon 
the Gospel. We do not for a moment question that it com- 
municates the proof of the existence of invisible things be- 
yond the proof of demonstration, as much as the sun sur- 
passes the merest taper, and gives a realization of eternal 
things so fresh and vivid that the Christian can exclaim as 
though standing in the very presence of his Master, in the 
language of Thomas, " My Lord and my God." 

How erroneous soever the definition we have given of faith 
may be, and we do not say, dogmatically, that it is not so, we 
think we feel satisfied, upon secure grounds, that there can 
grow out of it none of the terrible consequences, none of the 
inconsistencies, none of the extravagance, none of the positive 
injury to the cause of religion, none of the impracticability 
alleged for reasons not withheld, against the opposite inter- 
pretation. There is no danger to the cause of religion from 
too great fidelity in the discharge of the many Christian duties 
belonging to the relations of social and religious life. What- 
ever latitude may be given to the monitions of our minds, 
or properly to our internal feelings, w;ith regard to the realiza- 
tion of invisible things, they can never run into extravagance 
so long as they are kept in the rear, and regulated by the dis- 
charge of the condition upon which they depend, as we have 
defined it. The disciple of the Xazarene is in no danger of 
being duped by a conceit ; is in no danger of becoming the 
victim of a vision, or of a delusive mental monition, so long as 
his faith consists in obedience to his commands, as the in- 
flexible rule of thought and action, because no extravagance 
can practically injure, that is measured by the fidelity of a 
religious life ; no extravagance of fidelity in an upright walk, 

8* 



178 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



godly conversation, and active discharge of the duties and 
obligations of life enjoined by Christ, can be ever other- 
wise than practically useful. This doctrine admits of no ex- 
travagance, because the disciple knows that his enjoyment 
should keep pace with his fidelity ; that whenever it outstrips 
it and does not bear a sensible relation to it, he is at once 
satisfied that he is the victim of a delusive imagination and 
a heated fancy. And the same rule by which he measures 
his own condition he applies to others. He judges them by 
their fruit. But what shall we say of the other doctrine ? 
How shall we speak of that doctrine which recognizes the 
conviction of the mind, a reliance of the mind, a demonstra- 
tion of the mind, a persuasion of the mind ; and you may 
use every descriptive word in the language in order to char- 
acterize the mental conviction with regard to its extent and 
character for durability or vividness, and it would still be but 
a monition of the mind, a mental state, an idea, a mental 
process, — how shall we speak of that doctrine that adjudges 
this effort of the human intellect, this mental whim, this 
monition, this indication, this opinion, this impression, this 
conviction, as the condition of a scheme of human salvation, — 
this is predicted to fill the world with the conquests of prac- 
tical Christians ; that is to make the rich the brother of the 
poor ; that is to make the wise the tutor of the ignorant ; that 
is to astonish the gaze of wickedness in high places with the 
" attributes of awe and majesty," charity, benevolence, and 
good- will exhibited among the lowly followers of the Son of 
God ; that is to convert a hostile world into a band of brethren, 
interchanging the offices of fraternal kindness and love ; that 
is to make the earth blossom as the rose, and righteousness 
to spread over the earth like the water the face of the great 
deep ? How easy is it for men to become self-deceived when 
they are instructed that the condition of salvation consists in 
a superhuman mental conviction, which they are to encour- 



FAITH. 



179 



age by all the appliances of mental strivings, and instead of 
being obedient working Christians, practically useful in their 
several relations of life, become dreamers, vainly hoping that 
God will impart, in consideration of enthused hopes, and 
irrational intellectual phantasms and dreams of credulity, a 
corresponding manifestation of invisible things, tending to ,a 
mental ruin, and to the yet more pernicious consequence of 
mistaking the mad drunkenness of fanaticism for the dis- 
charge of the practical duties of a kind and affectionate 
social life. 

What a door for the entrance of every species of extrav- 
agance, and the visions of the wildest enthusiasm ! What a 
flood of lava, does not history tell us, has been poured out 
from the fountains of the heated fancy and the excited imagi- 
nation of the mind of man, through this open and inviting 
gateway, upon the body of Christ ! Self-deception, the birth 
of pride upon imagination ; self-delusion, the product of vanity 
and fancy, married to the congenial companion of an intol- 
erance whose bitterness is no less cruel than death, receive en- 
couragement among uneducated people, from this inutilita- 
rian doctrine, that the condition of God's favor is a high- 
wrought state of the mind ! 

We may rest satisfied that the utmost fervor of enthusiasm, 
the lashed state of the wildest animal heat, the social fury 
that alone is the child of the crowd, can never induce God to 
depart from the established laws of the dispensation of Christ 
Jesus. Sooner would the earth crumble into impalpable pow- 
der than God would depart from the established law of Christ, 
that grace shall follow Christian obedience, however fervent and 
heated may be the vain supplications for that purpose. The 
grace of God is bestowed according to fixed covenant laws. 
Can we assist God in bestowing his grace by the preparation 
of social enthusiasm ? Can we induce him to grant his 
grace without a compliance with the established condition ? 



180 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



What is the difference between the excitement produced by 
the fervor and eloquence of the pulpit, when it is not the 
grace of God, and that of the stage or the rostrum ? None. 
Human excitement is not to be discountenanced. It is one 
of the most important levers in inducing a change in human 
purposes, and therefore in evangelizing the world, and in in- 
dividual conversion. But we must always call it by its right 
name. We must not miscall it grace. The human excite- 
ment of the pulpit may most powerfully urge the party sub- 
jected to its influence to the resolve of submitting his will to 
the law of Christ, or of submitting his will to the will of God 
in discharging the commands of the mediator, and in this 
way is second to none of the instituted means of grace. The 
disciples of the Saviour who are under the impression that 
good works follow their mental convictions may be, and 
doubtless are, very good Christians, but it is because they do 
not act up to the logical consequences of their doctrines. 
They are only not Antinomians, because they choose not to 
be such in spite of the evident proclivity of the doctrine. 
They fully admit the divine obligation of abstaining from 
sin, and they press its importance with as much exuberance 
of zeal as deficiency of logical consistency. 

The absolute necessity of a virtuous life, or what is the same 
thing, the divine authority of the -statutes against evil, is so 
plainly and manifestly taught in the Scriptures, and the utter 
want of merit belonging to human conduct, however other- 
wise commendable, to contribute towards the expiation of the 
guilt of a sinner in the sight of God, is so clear and unequiv 
ocal, that divines have been anxious to define faith as some- 
thing that will produce grace and yet something that is 
devoid of merit. And forgetting that good actions may be 
both meritorious and yet not meritorious, and believing that 
their commendable qualities in the sight of men might in- 
duce persons to trust to their efficacy with God, they have, 



FAITH. 



181 



while unfolding the doctrine, represented faith, like Milton's 
lion, 

" Pawing 1 to get free its hinder parts," 

seeking to be free from all connection with works ; and while 
unfolding the necessity of works, have been as earnest and im- 
pressive in stating their importance and obligation, as was pos- 
sible under the peculiar circumstances of embarrassment grow- 
ing out of the definition of faith considered as a mental con- 
viction, as the only condition, and of course only essential 
requirement in justification. If the importance and obliga- 
tion of good works were carried too far and made to assume 
too high a position in the affair of the salvation of a soul, 
faith, as the only condition of justification, would be in dan- 
ger of decapitation. If the exclusive, rejecting, debarring, 
repelling oneness of faith alone as a mental conviction, 
were pressed in all its clear logical consequences, then good 
works come to a like tragic end. The explanation we have 
given of the origin and character of moral evil, at once di- 
vests good works of all merit in the sight of God. Good 
works, or good actions, or the refusal on the part of a moral 
probationer to choose what God has prohibited, and thereby 
temporarily constituted evil, is nothing more than the sub- 
mission of the will of an acting being to certain requirements. 
Good works are nothing more than doing certain things 
allowed, and avoiding certain things prohibited in a certain 
trial — where the things allowed and the things prohibited 
were of a like temporal and transient character, confined to 
the trial state, and were instituted for the purpose of the 
trial. There is nothing essentially good in good works, and 
nothing essentially evil in evil works. But God having 
allowed the one and prohibited the other, and placed a moral 
probationer upon the scene of earth where these enactments 
have authority, either to choose the one or to choose the 



182 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



other as ne might prefer, it follows that it is the choice that 
constitutes the good or the evil. 

Hence, there can be no merit in the eye of God in good 
works, because good works are nothing other than the choice 
of the will of his agent. And if the choice of the will of his 
free agent could either save him, or contribute to his salva- 
tion, he might choose to be saved directly, whether God was 
willing or not. If good works then had any merit to save a 
soul, a soul might be saved independently of God, and inde- 
pendently of any salvation dispensation. If such a thing 
could occur from such a cause, the death of Christ was a 
cruel mockery. There is nothing essentially good but God. 
All other good is a derived good. 

It cost the sacrifice of the Son of God in order to make the 
choice of good in a sinner acceptable to God ; or, in other 
words, it cost the death of Christ to renew the trial of free 
agency, or to make a practical condition of grace. 

It might be inquired whether good and benevolent men 
and moralists may not perform charitable deeds, and dis- 
charge the offices of kindness and affection required in the 
condition of salvation, and be upright in their walk and hon- 
est in their dealings, and make no profession of Christianity, 
and yet be Christians, and entitled to salvation ? If the dis- 
charge of the offices of kindness and charitable deeds, implied 
in obedience to the commands of Jesus Christ (obedience to 
which is called good works), constitute the condition of justi- 
fication according to the religious system of the Saviour, and 
entitle the disciple to the grace of God, or to the Christian 
religion, why are not benevolent men, whose lives are re- 
markable for their good works, and who do not profess 
Christianity, entitled to salvation, or justification ? 

The difference between the benevolent man, the moralist, 
and the Christian, is important and striking. 

Christians perform acts commanded by Jesus Christ, sub- 



FAITH. 



183 



rait their will, in intent as well as in act, to the directions 
of Jesus Christ, as an all-sufficient mediator between them 
and God, looking to the merits of Christ and the efficacy of 
his atoning blood for the pardon of instances of omission, 
and for the cause of grace to God the Father. This the 
moralist unquestionably does not. 

The moralist, — recognizing the admirable wisdom of the 
moral law, and its striking tendency to ameliorate the condi- 
tion of men, satisfied that there is in the distinctions of virtue 
an element of utility, and disregarding the existence or neces- 
sity of any other principle of action than the strength of 
moral purpose, — considers virtue, with Hobbes, as the result 
of political enactment, or with Bentham and Helvetius as 
purely selfish, or with Mandeville as the result of praise, ad- 
heres to its most general provisions by the strength of those 
intellectual faculties and moral qualities that Adam never 
lost in the fall, and lives a life that, externally, might put to 
shame many of the followers of the Xazarene. The laws of 
moral philosophy date from the creation. Hence the strength 
of moral philosophy dates from the creation. The Christian 
system dates from the restoration, and hence the strength of 
the system dates from the same period of time. Hence man 
has a natural created ability to be a moralist ; and for the 
same reason he has no natural ability to be a Christian. 
Adam might have been a moralist equal to Bentham and 
Helvetius, after the fall, in virtue of created strength, but 
could not have been a Christian. Adam's fall was not a 
moral nor an intellectual fall. For proof of which he did 
not murder his wife nor himself. He was restrained by 
moral considerations. Nor did he become an idiot. He 
retained his original moral ability and his original intellect- 
ual ability. For proof of which Hume and Bentham were 
moral and intellectual men when they were not Christians. 
Adam's fall was a spiritual perversion. His soul died a 



184 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



spiritual death. Hence the Christian religion is spiritual 
life. Hume and Helvetius were never spiritually alive, 
because they were never Christians. They never obtained 
the grace of God if they were never Christians. All wicked 
men are moral philosophers more or less good. Moral philos- 
ophy has its limits each way, beyond which man cannot go. 
He cannot get to be a Christian and he cannot descend to be 
a devil. There is a fixed limit to his morality and a fixed 
limit to his perversion. He may become as good as Ben 
tham or Seneca, and he may be as bad as Voltaire or Domi- 
tian. The distinction between the Christian and the moral- 
ist is in the motive principle of action. The moralist acts 
from the old, the Christian from the new principle, or motive. 
The moralist from the strength of moral philosophy, the 
Christian from the strength of the divine commands of a 
salvation system. He merely submits his will to a divine 
will, and thus acts from a divine derived power. But a 
much more difficult question yet might be propounded. 

There are very many excellent men raised under Christian 
instruction, who do not deny the divine authenticity of the 
system of Jesus Christ, and who are admirable moralists, 
blameless in the several relations of life, and useful in their 
various stations, and who make no profession of Christianity. 
Are they Christians ? There is a very momentous distinction 
between the Christian religion and the condition of the Chris- 
tian religion. To perform the condition of the Christian 
religion, there must be the surrender of the will to Christ, or 
to the commands of the Christian system. To serve God, no 
such thing as an action is required. The Christian religion 
enables us to serve God. To serve God is to love God 
supremely ; or in other words, to be in the possession of the 
grace of God, for it is by grace alone that we serve God. But 
we can obey Christ without grace, and we obey him in order 
to obtain grace. Now the compliance with the condition of 



FAITH. 



185 



Jesus Christ's system, which we define to be the submission 
of the will, contemplates the submission in two important 
senses. 

1st. Submission in the internal sense, and — 

2d. The submission in the external sense. 

This submission in the internal sense, is what most Protect- 
ants define to be faith alone ; and the submission of the will 
in the external sense, is what the Roman Catholics adjudge 
to be the condition of the Christian system. 

A sinner, for instance, may comply with the external duties 
of religion in the most praiseworthy and exemplary manner, 
and yet there may be no submission of his will to the will of 
Christ in respect to the secret desires of his nature. A man 
in the very discharge of the most solemn sacraments of the 
System, may be plotting schemes of adulterous lust. He does 
not bring his will into subjection in the internal sense. A 
man may also to a very great extent bring his will into sub- 
jection to the commands of Christ in the internal sense, and 
may refuse obedience to the external duties. 

The definition we give of the condition of the system re- 
quires submission in both respects. A sinner must bring the 
desires and purposes of his heart into subjection to the will of 
Christ, thereby excluding unholy desires and concupiscential 
cravings, but also must obey with faithful exactitude the ex- 
ternal duties and ceremonial institutions of religion, thereby 
making him an active Christian and a useful man. 

Protestants are just as far from the proper conception of the 
true theory of faith as the Catholics are, although they are 
sounder in respect to practical theology. 

We are always to remember, that the discharge of religious 
duties have an end in view, and that it is this end that con- 
stitutes the substance of the system. The submission of the 
will of man to Jesus Christ amounts to nothing, since it is 
only conditionary unless it be a successful submission. There 



186 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



may be a partial submission — it is just as useless as an entire 
life of disobedience. God does not receive a divided service. 
We are told expressly, that we cannot serve God and mam- 
mon. Let a sinner carry bis obedience to Christ to whatever 
extent he may, unless he goes far enough to secure the object 
contemplated as the end of the submission, it is of no more 
avail than the discharge of moral duties by the deist. There 
is no merit in good works of themselves ; hence they have, 
as the condition of grace, to answer their end and purpose, 
before the sinner who may render them can be at all benefit- 
ed by the submission, for he fails to get that that has merit. 
The grace of God is the end of good works, and when good 
works do not secure this end, they are of no avail, since good 
works are not the cause but the condition. But when good 
works, or what is the same thing, when the submission of the 
will to the commands of Jesus Christ is full and undivided, 
it is carried to the extent of securing the grace of God : then 
we obtain the cause of our salvation. Hence, it is this grace 
that distinguishes the Christian from him who discharges 
many of the duties enjoined by Jesus Christ. 

The error of the Protestant world consists not in teaching 
that submission in the internal sense to the commands of 
Christ, and the submission in the external sense, are not of 
divine obligation, but in insisting that this submission consti- 
tutes not the essential part of the condition of grace. 

The error of the Catholics, as charged upon them, whether 
truly or not we do not say, consists in teaching, that the con- 
dition and the cause of religion consist in the outward dis- 
charge of the duties and obligations of the system, and the 
observance of its ceremonial institutions. 

Now the one is just as erroneous as the other. An exter- 
ternal discharge of the duties and obligations of the system, 
and of its ceremonial institutions, is no more a compliance 
with the condition of Christ Jesus' system, than any Antino- 



FAITH. 



187 



mian attempt to acquire a conviction of the mind called faith 
alone. They divide faith into two parts, and thus destroy 
the beauty of the system. — It is a singular circumstance, that 
much the largest portion of the Christian philosophy of faith, 
has been derived from the writings of the Apostles rather than 
from the declarations of the Author of the system. There are 
very few of the parables of Christ that do not give a full and 
most unexceptionable definition and explanation of the doc- 
trine of faith. St. Paul discussed the philosophical question 
of the merit of human actions, abstractly considered, and con- 
trasted that merit with the merit of the blood of Christ., and 
the Christian world has been misled by his learning. He 
being a learned man, was fond of abstruse questions, very 
good and useful in their places and when properly understood, 
but exceedingly calculated to confound the unlearned — at 
least they have had that tendency. 

The parables of the fig- tree and of the ten virgins give us 
a full exposition of the condition of the Christian system. 
There is nothing more wanting. Those two parables are 
enough to save the world. The fig-tree was without fruit ; 
it was destroyed. " What things soever ye desire when ye 
pray, believe that ye shall receive them, and ye shall have 
them." Christ's promises are Christ's laws. A divine law 
is a vital principle. All that is required is to submit to the 
law. The will submits and the law acts. Suppose now 
Christ has promised a particular blessing, or directed a par- 
ticular thing with an accompanying blessing to be done. All 
that man needs to do the thing, or to procure the blessing, is 
the will — is the faith. If he has promised a blessing, it is obedi- 
ence to take it. All that is necessary is, not to be willing to 
take it, but to take it. The taking it is the act of the will : 
the willing to take it is the wish to take it only. A man can 
never get a blessing by wishing to take it. A wish is not obedi- 
ence. A blessing is offered, — any free man can take if he will 



188 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



take it. If he does not will to take, when free to take it, he 
lacks faith : hence the act of the will is the act of faith. Take 
the case of the lame man. Christ told him to rise and walk. 
He might have wished to do it until eternity, and he never 
could have walked, because a wish is not faith. There was but 
one condition to his rising and walking, and that was obedi- 
ence. He had simply to obey Christ, and rising and walking 
were easy, because it was the will or law of God that he 
should rise and w r alk. He simply submitted his will to the 
will of Christ, and the will of Christ became the law-active 
— the will of Christ operated through his obedience. His ris- 
ing and walking was the will of Christ, and was like any other 
law or will of God. All that was required of the lame man 
was to obey it. How did he finally rise and walk ? He sim- 
ply put Christ's will into operation by his free obedience. 

Let us take this case : Suppose Christ were to appear to 
the reader, and were to tell him to stop the sun. If Christ be 
God, this would not be more difficult than the simplest thing 
of which we can have any conception. Now, here we have 
a law of God delivered to a free agent. This instance is pre- 
cisely analogous to the case of the lame man, and also pre- 
cisely analogous to all the other commands of Christ. Now, 
it is certain the reader will never be able to stop the sun with- 
out faith. With faith he can do it easily. Now, what kind 
of faith does he require ? The thing is easy to do. There is 
no difficulty in his stopping the sun, because a God of infinite 
power has directed it. It is the will of God, and hence the law 
of God, that the sun shall stop, if the reader will stop it, and 
Christ has directed him to stop it. Now, what has the read- 
er got to do ? Nothing, but to submit his will to the will of 
Christ. He has simply to obey Christ. He can stop the sun, 
it is admitted. If he has faith, he will stop it. If he obeys 
Christ, and stops the sun, he has faith. Then faith is obedi- 
ence. Now, suppose the reader does not obey Christ, and 



FAITH. 



189 



does not stop the sun ; he has no faith. What, then, is his 
fault ? It is disobedience. Hence, the opposite of faith is 
disobedience. We might illustrate this at great length, but 
deem it unnecessary. 

Are those excellent men, very common in Christian coun- 
tries, whose lives are exemplary, who adorn the various rela- 
tions of life, who are moral, benevolent, obliging, and of affec- 
tionate dispositions, but who make no profession of Christian- 
ity, Christians ? There are doubtless very many men who have 
the Christian religion who make very little parade about it. 
Any man who feels himself under the government of a disin- 
terested affection for God or man,is a Christian. There is no 
other kind of religion that can enable a sinner to love with a 
disinterested love but the Christian religion ; and man cannot 
naturally do it. That is the true test of the Christian, what- 
ever may be his creed. 

Wherever upon the face of this earth a human being is 
under the government of a pure affection, is controlled by a 
disinterested love, he is a Christian ; because, wherever you 
find pure love you find God. God is pure love ; and there is 
no pure love that is not God. This is obtainable only by the 
Gospel. The natural man is a selfish man, because he is with- 
out God, or, what is the same thing, he is without grace. God is 
grace, and righteousness, and love, and mercy in a pure, essen- 
tial, infinite state. If God be pure love, it is a blank solecism 
to say you can find pure love that is not an emanation from 
God. Hence, a man may be a Christian who makes no pro- 
fession of Christianity. Of course, his danger is imminent, 
and his chances of preserving it very few ; still it is possible. 

Now, we' must remember that a man is not a Christian 
until he comes into the possession of the Christian religion, 
because, until he obtains the necessary amount of grace to be 
admitted into Christ's kingdom, the grace he may have will 
die out. The Christian religion is the ability to be governed 



190 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



by a pure motive, because grace governs, and grace is love, 
and God is love. Hence, to be a Christian, is to be governed 
by God, is to have our will lost in the will of God. 

The distinction, then, between a Christian and a Christian 
philosopher, is, that the one performs the condition of sal- 
vation, consisting in good works, and thereby obtains the 
grace of God ; and by the aid of this grace of God, upon 
which he relies exclusively, worships God in the sanctuary of 
the affections ; and the other performs many of the com- 
mands of Jesus Christ by the strength of natural principles, 
or principles inherent in man as a created being, and not 
procuring the grace of d^d, relies, as a matter of course, 
upon the strength of moral philosophy to worship God. The 
first is a Christian, and the other a Christo-moralist. 

Proceeding upon the supposition upon which the whole 
system of mediation is predicated, that nothing can procure 
the grace of God but the efficacy of Christ's atoning blood, 
no acts of themselves, disconnected from this merit, whatever 
may be their character otherwise, however commendable and 
praiseworthy they may appear to be in human estimation, 
not having any possible tendency to produce God's grace, 
because human acts are not essential, efficient causes, it must 
unquestionably be true, that a Christo-moralist is no more 
entitled to grace or salvation, than such men as Caligula or 
Voltaire. If two things can neither of them produce grace, 
one of them can have no advantage over the other in respect 
to the effect desired, however considerable may be the differ- 
ence between them in other respects. If A. and B. can neither 
of them construct a watch, the one has no advantage over 
the other in respect to constructing a watch, although one of 
them may be eminently wise and good, and the other desper- 
ately wicked. 

Man, under the circumstances of his probationary trial, can 
never be other than a sinner, certainly and actually, unless he 



FAITH. 



191 



procure the grace of God necessary to enable him not to sin 
— not to be a sinner. Man is utterly unable to resist wholly 
the temptations to sin, unless he have the grace of God ; con- 
sequently he cannot serve or love God without this grace, 
since to serve or love God implies a supreme affection for him. 

The service of God being one thing, and the performance 
of a condition another thing, to serve God or not to sin, 
requires a condition of grace in order that obedience to the 
condition may secure the ability to serve God. 

Abyssus abyssum invooat. 

A Christian is one who, by the circumstances of his pro- 
bationary trial, cannot serve God, or cease from sin naturally, 
but who obeys the Mediator in his character of mediator, by 
human effort, which is faith, or the condition of salvation ; 
obtains the favor of God in virtue of the mediation, and by 
the impulsive character of this favor is enabled to love God. 
A sinner is one who, by the circumstances of his probationary 
trial, cannot serve God or cease from sinning ; who does not 
obey the Mediator, in his character of mediator, by human 
effort, whatever may be his moral character or conduct oth- 
erwise ; who does not procure the grace of God in virtue of 
the merits of the Mediator, necessary to enable him to love 
God or to cease from sin. 

A Christo-moralist — to bring the question nearer home — 
is one who regards faith as a mental condition, consisting in 
the reception of the truths of the Bible as historical facts ; 
in the direction of his natural endowments to the serious con- 
sideration of its moral precepts, and to a prevailing and 
habitual effort to produce a conformity of feeling and con- 
duct with its requisitions, and to engage in the service of 
God as an intelligent and rational gentleman. There is a 
great deal of such pseudo-christianity in the Christian world. 
Tt is the plague-spot of the age. To the learned, and the 



192 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



educated, and the moral, the entire and exclusive dependence 
upon the grace of God has much of seeming foolishness. 
They had so much rather rely upon the merit of excellent 
conduct and moral propriety, and the observance of moral 
precepts, than upon an intangible quality they do not natu- 
rally possess. 

A moral character generally conformed to the precepts of the 
Bible, whose morality every sinner admires, obtained by the ex- 
ercise of original powers and faculties of understanding and vo- 
lition, is extremely congenial to the natural tastes of man, with 
whom the near has an enchantment that does not belong to 
the far or remote ; and in his opinion it is much better calcu- 
lated to secure the favor of God than simple dependence upon 
the merits of another. Men who are eminently moral, who 
have a reputation for morality, who are careful of their 
morals, who claim and receive a respect for their morals, and 
which has cost them much personal self-denial, cling almost 
with the tenacity of life, at least with an instinctive tenacity 
and fondness, to the acknowledged excellence of their char- 
acters, and rely upon it as something real, something tangible, 
something meritorious, which they can offer for God's grace. 
It is less than dust and ashes in his sight. 

Against morality we have not a disparaging word to say, 
only, that it is not the cause of salvation, nor is it any part of 
the price by which God's grace may be purchased. Excellent, 
and commendable, and praiseworthy, and a high achievement 
and a costly acquisition, it undoubtedly is. That all men who 
find it necessary to restrain their passions themselves, without 
the grace of God, readily admit. It is yet hardly worth the 
cost and pains of the possession. It is a dear purchase at the 
price that is paid for it. It costs deep dissimulation and 
hypocrisy, and self-denial, and watchfulness, and an oblique 
education, and time, and it is scarcely its own reward. Bad 
as it is, and dearly as it costs, it is beyond all calculation 



FAITH. 



193 



superior, however, to unbridled indulgence. We should call 
it by its right name. It is self-education in the school of 
hypocrisy. 

This is the price moralists offer for the grace of God. If it 
were at ail available, it would be the most conclusive proof of 
the folly of the blood of Calvary, that alone has merit with God. 

In momentous contradistinction from the faith of the 
Christo-moralist, is the faith of the Christian, that, like the 
faith of the Christ o-moralists, in respect to the duties common 
to them both, consists in the recognition of the divine author- 
ity of the Bible, in the direction of his natural powers to the 
serious consideration of its truths, and in the earnest effort to 
obey the moral precepts of the Mediator as such, attaching no 
kind of merit or excellence to his efforts, however strenuous 
or successful, but placing his trust in the aid of a new 
motive principle, alien to the natural man, — the grace of God, 
given in virtue of the atoning sacrifice of the Mediator, and 
sealed and confirmed by the Holy Ghost ; thereby enabling 
him, while faithful in his vocation, to resist the temptations 
of sin, and to serve God with a supreme affection, voluntary 
as it is delightful. The one acts from the old, and the other 
from the new motive, — the one motive dating from the crea- 
tion, and the other from the restoration. 

The test the two apply to their religion is equally dissimilar. 

The Christo-moralist thanks God he is not like other men : 
judges himself to be a Christian, because he performs Chris- 
tian acts, which is no cause at all, since the only cause of the 
Christian religion is the grace of God : has a complacent 
satisfaction in the contemplation of what has cost him so 
much self-denial and pains-taking, and which gives him so 
much reputation with his fellow-men : thinks that what 
gives him so much serious pleasure in the contemplation, and 
secures him a name and a fame in the world, must pass cur- 
vent as pure gold, in the treasury of heaven. 

9 



194 



TETJE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



The Christian, on the contrary, feels all unworthy : feels 
his most laborious discharge of kind acts as unrneritorious : 
feels himself a poor pensioner upon the infinite riches of the 
cross : has nothing to offer but the blood of Christ, while a 
holy exaltation, Phoenix-like, springs from the depth of his 
self-abnegation, and has life in the very midst of death. He 
judges himself to be a Christian, not because he has dis- 
charged Christian duties, but because he has the testimony in 
consciousness of the possession of the grace of God, not be- 
stowed because he is an obedient Christian, but because upon 
his obedience Christ has interfered in his behalf. He relies 
upon a supernatural assurance of his personal acceptance 
with God, an assurance surpassing all convictions derivable 
from processes of human thought, and feels this assurance 
confirmed by the testimony of the Holy Ghost. He ex- 
periences his safety. The Christo-moralist regards this as- 
sumed knowledge of personal acceptance with God, as in op- 
position to all the laws of just reasoning — a fine flight of 
fancy, not far from the realm of lunacy — as repugnant to the 
stillest principles of the law of logical sequences, and at war 
w T ith the manliness of the human character ; and this feeling of 
dauntless security he calls fanaticism. Without it the Bible 
would not be worth the paper upon which it is written. It 
is the law of liberty that belongs to it, and rescues it from 
the character of a galling and oppressive servitude ; changes 
it from a creed of suffering into a life-giving fountain, and 
furnishes the soul with an anchor that passes within the veil. 
The condition may be hard, but the grace of God is inde- 
scribably joyous. Whether such a knowledge be the vision 
of the fancy or not, or whether it be a stable law of the Gos- 
pel or not, no less true than essential to the perfection of the 
Christian character, is a question to be determined only by 
each individual for himself, with a view to the solemn interests 
of eternity. It is not a matter of any general interest. It 



FAITH. 



195 



has not more general interest than an opinion about the size 
of the sun, or the velocity of the earth. It has nothing prac- 
tical about it. It is matter of private consciousness. It is 
analogous, in respect to the opinion of others, to an imagina- 
tion, or a dream, or a recollection of a painting, or of a land- 
scape. It is matter of consciousness between God and' the 
soul, not of many in the aggregate, but of each individual. 
It is not a principle of action that can be carried into general 
society. It is not made the basis of action. Nothing is pred- 
icated upon it but the joy and tranquillity of the soul of the 
individual. It is not a condition of salvation ; nor does it 
obtrude itself in the business of life. It is a bosom-com- 
panion. If a Christian indulges in a flight of fancy that he 
treasures more than the wealth of the world, and relies upon 
more than he does upon the existence of the material world, 
and is not thereby made any less useful, any less active in 
the discharge of the obligations of life, but much more useful, 
and much more active, it is as harmless as the imaginations 
of the poet, or the visions of the painter. 

Harm may come out of it, if it be substituted for the con- 
dition of salvation, and made the basis of any general action, 
or if it be indulged as the child of an ill-spent, inactive diso- 
bedient Christian life. 

" Testimony," says Dr. Beecher, " may mislead, and tht 
sense, by disease, may deceive, but consciousness is the end 
of all controversy ; its evidence cannot be increased, and if it 
be distrusted there is no alternative but universal skepticism.'' 

Those theologians who maintain that man is a fallen 
being, and cannot turn and prepare himself by his own natu- 
ral strength and works to faith and calling upon God, should 
show why it is that the system of salvation is not a system 
of decrees. This demand is not answered by proving from 
the Bible that man is a free agent and free to choose, and 
that God's blessings depend upon man's agency, but by the 



196 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

exhibition of the consistency between a theory that main- 
tains man's inability to do even the simplest thing, even to 
" turn himself to faith," and a free povjer to be religious or 
not. Has man the rjower to do any thing towards becoming 
religious ? And if he has not, can he be a free agent ? How 
free ? Free to fill his destiny ? If man has a power to do 
any thing towards becoming religious, then the theory is false 
that he cannot turn and prepare himself by his own natural 
strength to faith and calling upon God. It is said of Vol- 
taire that he prayed with pallid lips upon his death-bed. Is 
prayer not a means of grace ? If Voltaire could turn him- 
self to and use a means of grace in the vain hour of the 
death-terror, then man has a natural ability to turn himself 
to faith and calling upon God. The attempt to comply and 
compliance are two distinct things. 

If Christ has procured a condition of grace for us, and we 
cannot turn and prepare ourselves to make use of this condi- 
tion, free agency is a sick child's dream. If this condition is 
a supernatural work — a work above human nature — it is 
analogous to creation ; and it would be as easy for man to 
create a world as to perform the condition. But is it not an 
insult and outrage upon human reason to ask it to credit 
the story of Calvary, if the object of that tragedy was to pro- 
cure for man a principle of free agency consisting in a super- 
natural condition ? Man can have no more interest in one 
supernatural work than another. Mankind have no more 
interest in the tragedy of Calvary, if its object was to effectu- 
ate something supernatural, than it has in the creation of 
one of the fixed stars. It is only in the event that man as 
man was benefited by it that he has any interest in it. It 
was, so far as we can see, just as easy for God to do a thing 
he wanted to do for man of a supernatural character without 
any inducing cause as with one. We are to remember that 
God cannot act naturally, nor can man act supernaturally. 



FAITH. 



197 



A supernatural action is one above the ability of human 
nature. God may make man his instrument to do a preter- 
natural act, but it is God that does it because it is a super- 
natural work, and the man is the instrument, and performs 
the same office in the act that a block of wood and a rack, 
or any other animate or inanimate agent would. God is the 
only being that can perform a supernatural act. To say that 
human nature can perform a supernatural work is a precise 
contradiction of terms. It is the use of the very language to 
express a contradiction. There are two kinds of acts in 
direct opposition — a natural act and a supernatural act. 
Man can only perform the one and God only the other. 
Man cannot perform a supernatural act, because that would 
make him God ; and God cannot perform a natural act, 
because that would make him man. "What made Jesus 
Christ a man ? The performance of natural actions. What 
interest then has man in a supernatural condition of grace ? 
Just as much as he has in the supernatural work of shooting 
straws through, the sun. The entire history of the media- 
tion of Jesus Christ is the most unmeaning ocean into tem- 

o 

pest tost to waft a feather or to drown a fly, if he has only 
procured for man a supernatural condition of grace, if grace 
is the justifying cause of salvation. 

In order to meet the force of these objections, it is some- 
times urged that man is assisted by the Holy Spirit. Such 
a supposition utterly confounds the distinction between a nat- 
ural and a supernatural action. It is a vain and superstitious 
imagination to suppose that it is possible for the Spirit to 
assist man in the performance of a supernatural action. And 
why ? For the plainest and most conclusive of all possible 
reasons. Because all that is supernatural about the action 
is the act of God, and all that is natural is the act of man. 
It is just as possible to confound the distinction between God 
and man, as that between a supernatural and a natural work. 



198 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



To the doctrine that the Holy Spirit assists man in performing 
a natural action, we interpose no objection. It is a part of 
our creed. But how assists ? It is an assistance rendered in 
obedience to the distinction between God and man, between 
a supernatural and a natural action. The Holy Spirit assists 
man to discharge a natural action not by the impartation of 
any strength not natural. Hence it is not an efficient but a 
persuasive influence. Upon the supposition that the condition 
of grace is a supernatural work, what was the utility of the 
atonement ? It could not have been to enable God to do a 
supernatural work for created objects, because his power in 
that regard is unlimited. It could not have been to induce 
God to do a kind action, because he is infinite love. God 
does all necessary kind acts from the force of his character. 
The object of the atonement, then, was not to act upon God 
by the impartation to him of a different disposition, because 
his disposition is always and unchangeably benevolent in its 
essential character. If God, then, was not the object of the 
atonement, we may conclude that man was its object. It 
was designed to act upon man. Hence its object was to 
prepare him for free agency. It must have been designed to 
enable man, naturally unable to love and serve God, natural- 
ly able to acquire a power to love and serve him. It is then 
the condition of Christ Jesus' system, the price of which was 
the tragedy of Calvary and its antecedents, that enables man 
supernaturally to serve God, since he is naturally able to 
obey the condition, and obedience to the condition gives a 
preter -ability to love and serve God. The sinner obeys 
Christ by natural ability, is assisted by the Holy Ghost, 
thereby obtains the grace of God, not because obedience 
works grace as its cause, but because obedience is the condi- 
tion or the road to grace that comes in consequence of the 
atoning sacrifice ; and with this grace, the procuring cause of 
which is the merits of Christ, the sinner, now a saint, loves 



FAITH. 



199 



God and procures salvation, — the procuring cause of which 
is the grace of God. If the procuring cause of salvation is a 
supernatural conviction, and a supernatural conviction is the 
act of God, then it follows that the procuring cause of salva- 
tion is the act of God. In this way we just precisely get rid 
of human agency. And the system would apply just as 
rationally to sea-monsters as to man. 

If the procuring cause of salvation is a supernatural con- 
viction, we deprive ourselves of the eminent advantage of the 
practical tests of the Christian or divine law, granted to us by 
Jesus Christ. A. may claim to be a Christian by the affirm- 
ation that he has the gift of the supernatural conviction. 
Now if the condition be a supernatural conviction, his answer 
is argument enough ta stop a thousand objecting mouths, 
and although his conduct may be in a measure inconsistent 
with the statement, another has no right to presume upon 
the apparent inconsistency, for it may in reality be only ap- 
parent. According to the definition we give, no such embar- 
rassment can arise, and we can freely act upon the direction 
of the Scriptures ; we feel authorized to judge men by their 
fruits. It is very far from being an unusual thing in human 
nature for men to govern their conduct in opposition to the 
logical deductions of their creeds. Man is not a creature of 
reason, but of motive. And hence it is that many men act 
upon the maxim of Christ to judge Christians by their fruits, 
when their creed is, that the condition of Christianity is a 
mental conviction exclusively. Their conduct is better than 
their creed. And this is no small proof that the con- 
dition of grace is not a creed, for a mental conviction does 
not differ from a creed. But when a person claims to be a 
Christian, and loves the things of this life more than the 
things of God, avenges himself, goes to law with his broth- 
er, is unwilling to condescend to men of low estate, wise in 
his own conceit, not kindly affectioned, we consider ourselves 



200 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



justified, under our theory, by divine authority, to pronounce 
him to be either a hypocrite, or a Christian of little faith. 

When a person claiming to be a Christian is under the 
afflictive hand of God, and the clouds of adverse fortune and 
gloomy allotments of providence make life appear drear and 
desolate, and the world to be a fatherless land, and a God to 
be absent, and he begins to complain and doubt, we adjudge 
his faith to be weak. Had he faith he could exclaim, 
" Though thou slay me, yet will I trust in thee." 

When a person claims to be a Christian, we watch his con- 
duct. We see him feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, 
loving the things of this world less than the things of God, 
testifying that it is the " grace of God wherein he stands" 
apt to be entreated, in honor preferring others, not slothful in 
business, but fervent in spirit, owing no man any thing ; we 
adjudge him in obedience to the divine authority of Jesus 
Christ to be a true disciple of the Nazarene. We never ask 
for his mental convictions, for if we did, we should think we 
were presuming upon the divine prerogative of God. 

Christ taught, along with active charity, personal discom- 
forts, a disregard of personal convenience, a rigid, discrimi- 
nating self-denial, and non-conformity with the sinful distinc- 
tions of an alien and unloving society. Those disciples who 
lose sight of these divine precepts in the lurid glare of intel- 
lectual creeds, and delude themselves with the metaphysical 
distinctions of an infidel sophistry, and avoid the stern and 
self-denying, self-sacrificing duties of Christianity, like the 
hands of the dial, go noiselessly and imperceptibly to the re- 
ward of hypocritical self-delusion, and barter the prospect of 
the skies for the most unsubstantial considerations — the ap- 
plause of the pleasure-drunken world, and the temporary grat- 
ifications of this fleeting life — considerations, in view of the 
exchange, that must make hell itself shudder. "Who is a 
wise man, and endued with knowledge among you I Let him 



FAITH. 



201 



show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of 
wisdom." 

St. Paul says, in Romans iii. 20, "By the deeds of the law, 
shall no flesh be justified." In Gal. iii. 3, "But that no man 
is justified by the law in the sight of God it is evident, for 

the just shall live by faith." " And the' law 

is not of faith." " Being justified freely by his grace through 
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." 

Is it imagined by any one, that St. Paul, in these extracts, 
and others of similar import, desires to diminish the authority 
and importance of works ? Hear him : " Do we make void 
the law through faith ? God forbid : yea, we establish the 
law." 

St. Paul, in these passages from his writings, is discussing a 
plain natural, metaphysical, and scriptural proposition of truth. 
It is, that the condition is never the cause of any effect. With 
this key all his writings may be unlocked. Every law has 
necessarily a condition, every effect has a cause, and the con- 
dition of the law is never the cause of the effect. The reader 
may try this, and he will find it true in nature, true in meta- 
physical reasoning, and we affirm it to be true in the Gospel. 
We understand St. Paul to affirm, that " we are freely justi- 
fied by grace through the redemption that is in Jesus 
Christ ;" but by this declaration we do not understand him 
as wishing to diminish the necessity of a Christian life of obe- 
dience as essential to salvation ; nay, but to establish it. St. 
Paul only wishes to insist and maintain, that the procuring 
cause of justification does not lie in the condition. Faith, as 
the condition, is not the procuring cause of justification, but 
that the grace of God is ; but if you will read him closely, 
he will tell you, that in order to obtain this cause, we must 
obey the condition of good works. 

Suppose the reader's father were a good man, and God, 
moved by love of the father, were to tell the son, that if he 

9* 



202 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



would take an iron spade and dig in the ground, he should 
find gold, we should have an instance of the plan of salva- 
tion. The reader on digging would find gold, in consequence 
of the law of God, because of the goodness of his father. 

The cause would be the law of God ; the reason or merit 
of the law would be the goodness of his father ; and the condi- 
tion would be his digging in the ground with an iron spade. 

The cause of salvation is the grace of God ; the reason or 
merit of this cause is the redemption that is in Christ Jesus ; 
and the condition is obedience in thought and action to the 
commands of Jesus Christ. 

This will explain all of St. Paul's writings. This propo- 
sition is not only true of the law of the Gospel, but is true of 
gravitation, attraction, of walking, swimming, flying (we 
need not recapitulate), of every law of God performed by an 
animal of motion. 

Henc£ it follows, that a sinner, as a free agent, cannot and 
could not obtain the grace of God, unless he comply with a 
condition ; and he would not have had a condition without 
the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, and he could not 
obtain grace without the law of God. 

The Gospel is the law, Jesus Christ the mediator, procurer, 
and minister, God the cause, and good works the condition. 

This makes it the most practical system the world ever 
saw, and it is certainly the best. 

The word employed to denote the opposite of faith is dis- 
obedience or contumacy. What is disobedience ? It is sim- 
ply the practical refusal to submit our wills to the prescribed 
will of God. The only way in which the opposite of faith 
can possibly manifest itself is in an action. A sinful action 
is but practically preferring our wills to the prescribed or re- 
vealed will of God. If the opposite of faith means disobe- 
dience, and the opposite of disobedience means obedience, then 
certainly obedience and faith cannot be dissimilar. The same 



FAITH. 



203 



is true of love and affection, or of any other similar instance. 
The opposite of love is hatred, and the opposite of hatred is 
affection ; then love and affection mean the same principle. 

If faith means the submission of our wills to the pre- 
scribed will of God, it is very easy to comprehend the office 
and design of means of grace. Means of grace must be aids 
to bring about this submission. For example, prayer, repent- 
ance, fasting, and the like, are not designed to act upon 
God, but upon the will of man. Their object is to induce the 
subjection of our wills to the written will of God. Their 
object is to make us more diligent in our religious calling. 
It is not to be presumed, that by fasting the most ascetic, by 
repentance the most godly, or by prayer the most fervent, we 
can ever expect to induce God to act from any other motive 
than that of supreme love, under the guidance of perfect wis- 
dom ; to be more disposed to grant what he has contracted 
to grant ; to be more inclined to yield what is in accordance 
with the settled purposes of his salvation laws. It would be 
just as wise to expect God to suspend the laws of gravitation, 
and to permit a cannon ball to float like a feather, or a feather 
to fall like a cannon ball, in opposition to his law of gravi- 
tation, upon mere human supplication, as to expect him, for 
a like motive, to depart from the settled laws of the Chris- 
tian dispensation. The office of means of grace is to aid in 
bringing our wills into subjection to the will of God; or, in 
other words, to increase our faith, that we may thereby pro- 
cure grace. The prayer of the righteous availeth much, 
but not with God ; Christ has performed with him all the 
necessary availing. The bringing our wills under the sway 
of the will of God, makes the bestowal of grace a necessary 
consequence, for the plain reason, that where the will of God 
prevails, there grace prevails ; because God is grace, and God's 
will is God himself. Whenever our wills are lost in the sway 
of the will of God, it is God acting through us ; the will of 



204 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



God being God, it is God that prevails ; it is then God that 
acts through us and by us. Thus it is that we live, and 
move, and have our being in him. When the will of God 
prevails in us to that effect, it is as easy to create a world as 
to pluck a flower. Under these circumstances, it is just as 
easy for a sinner to obtain the forgiveness of his sins, as it is 
for him to pluck a flower or to walk. And the reason is 
plain. The man that walks yields obedience to the will of 
God respecting walking ; he does not adopt his own will and 
attempt to walk upon his head or hands. The sinner has 
only to observe the will of God respecting grace. It is the 
written will of God, that the sinner shall have the forgiveness 
of his sins, just as it was the will of God that Peter should 
walk upon the water, or that the lame should walk, or the 
blind see. Now, all that is necessary for the sinner to do is, 
to get his will out of the way, so that the will of God may 
have sway, voluntarily with respect to the sinner. Either the 
will of God has to prevail in man, or his own will has to 
prevail, or there will be a cessation of existence. So long as 
the will of the sinner is not lost in the supremacy of the 
divine will, the forgiveness of his sins is an utter impossibility, 
because man's will cannot effect this object. Nothing can 
effectuate the forgiveness of sins but the will of God. Give 
that will voluntary sway, and forgiveness follows of itself. 
The sinner has to bring his will into voluntary obedience. 
Voluntary obedience to Christ is faith. Man's evil will is' 
man's choice of evil. When man chooses good, he chooses 
God's will. To choose good is to choose God. It is per- 
fectly easy for a sinner to obtain forgiveness, if he chooses to 
obtain forgiveness. The difficulty lies in the choice. We 
must, however, distinguish between trying to choose and 
desiring to choose, and actual choosing. Actual choosing is 
actual taking. Actual obedience is actual fruition. When 
we choose God we take God, but we may desire to choose 



FAITH. 



205 



without taking. Choosing God is but obeying God ; but the 
power of the will, in this regard, is destroyed in the fall. 
We cannot choose God on that account without a mercy- 
scheme. To displace our wills implies grace, because it im- 
plies the supremacy of God's will. The reason why Joshua 
arrested the sun, was, because his will was displaced by God's 
will, and God's will became supreme in Joshua. In other 
words, Joshua arrested the sun according to the will of God. 

The reason why the apostles performed miracles, was be- 
cause their wills were displaced by the will of God. No man 
can perform a miracle. The miracles w T ere performed by the 
will of God, not by the will of the apostles. The apostles 
gave up their wills to the will of God, and the will of God 
performed the miracle. Hence, it was the faith of the apos- 
tles that worked the miracles according to the will of God. 
Then faith is the voluntary cessation of man's will in the 
chosen supremacy of God's will. Man's will being paralyzed 
in the fall, a mercy-scheme, with means of grace, became 
necessary, to enable him voluntarily to displace his will, and 
voluntarily to permit the sway of God's will. Hence, the 
office and design of means of grace, and a condition of grace. 
The means of grace are designed to aid man in his faith, in 
his voluntary surrender of his will, and in the voluntary 
choice of God's will. Hence, means of grace look to the 
Gospel, not to God. 

It being true, that just so soon as the sinner brings his 
will into voluntary obedience to the chosen sway of God's 
will, the grace of God follows, or rather exists, by necessary 
consequence, since God is nothing other than grace ; the ob- 
ject of means of grace, then, cannot be to act upon God, but 
upon man. When the will of God prevails over man, grace 
prevails over man ; and if grace prevails, all sins are forgiven. 
God's will is always ready, provided man's will is ready. 
That has to be gotten ready, because it has to be voluntary. 



206 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



The voluntary choice of the will of God is all that can be 
required to make the will of God prevail ; but that volun- 
tary choice is the difficulty — a difficulty brought about by 
the fall. God's will is ever ready to bestow grace. All the 
prayers, and all the repentance, and all the fastings of all the 
world for all time, cannot have the weight of a hair in 
making God more disposed to will that the sinner shall have 
forgiveness, than he is in his revealed will. If it be the will 
of God that the sinner shall have forgiveness of sins when- 
ever the sinner voluntarily permits this will to have sway over 
him, the forgiveness of God must either necessarily follow, or 
it must follow that it is not his will that the sinner shall have 
forgiveness of sin. It is not necessary for us to get God 
ready or willing. Man has to be got ready ; his will has to 
receive new strength. Men are afraid to surrender their wills 
to God ; they are afraid to trust entirely to the will of God ; 
they lack faith, and hence faith is obedience. They do not 
actually and practically trust God's promises ; they prefer to 
rely upon their own wills. Why is not a sinner converted 
the very moment he begins a Christian career ? The answer 
is plain — his will is weak. Why is he converted afterwards, 
in the use of the means of grace? Because his will to 
choose God has been increased. Why is he converted at 
all ? Because he practically trusts God's promises, takes God 
at his word, sinks his own will, voluntarily chooses God's 
will. God can work a supernatural work easily, and if it is 
his will that a supernatural work shall take place in man, 
when he voluntarily chooses this supernatural will, the choice 
of the supernatural will is the necessary condition, and the 
inevitable consequence is, that upon the choice the work oc- 
curs, by divine authority. This follows from the fixedness of 
God's character. When men have no grace, their will pre- 
vails necessarily, instead of the will of God ; but when the 
will of God prevails, men have grace necessarily, because 



FAITH. 



207 



God's will is grace. It is the will of God that all men shall 
be born again. Now, what hinders ? Nothing in the world 
but the contrary or repugnant wills of men. In this they are 
free agents, because they can oppose the will of God. It is 
the power of arresting the will of God, in this aspect of the 
question, that constitutes free agency. In the natural world, 
material objects cannot oppose the will of God, and hence are 
Dot free agents. The conversion of the whole world to God 
is as easy as the conversion of any one of them ; but then it 
is not so easy to induce the whole world to submit their wills 
voluntarily to the will of God, in this respect, as it is to in- 
duce one. It is just as easy for God to let a thousand pounds 
of lead fall to the earth by his law of gravitation, as it is to 
let a feather fall. So of the world's conversion. 

Prayer, repentance, and fasting are means of grace designed 
to produce a reflex influence upon man's will. 

M All the fitness lie requireth 
Is to feel your need of him." 

Our Saviour taught us to pray, " Thy will be done." " Not 
as I will, but as thou wilt," says our Saviour. It is for this 
reason that private prayer is enjoined, and private fasting, 
and private repentance, to the exclusion of public demonstra- 
tions. God answers prayer, because it is a means of grace ; 
not because it makes him more disposed, but because the ap- 
plicant is better ready, and more willing. Earnest supplica- 
tion makes man more willing, because it is the effort of the 
will to be willing, and the effort increases the willingness. 
Fasting suppresses the fulness of the will of man, teaches de- 
pendence, and dependence is the sense of the sufficiency of 
God's will, and the insufficiency of ours. The philosophy of 
prayer is, that earnest entreaty reacts upon the supplicant ; 
because, by teaching ourselves earnestly to desire a thing, 
both the desire and the willingness to receive it are propor- 
tionably enhanced. Hence, it is a means of grace, and pro- 



208 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



foundly philosophical, since it increases our willingness to 
give God's will the sway. All that man has to do is to give 
God's will the sway voluntarily. Hence, prayer increases this 
voluntary disposition. We may continue to pray for grace 
so' earnestly, that we may be excited into a willingness to 
take God at his word. This explains the philosophy of 
wrestling Jacob. This is faith. Hence, prayer assists faith. 
Hence, the inutility of set forms of prayer, and their unphilo- 
sophical character. 

In the case of the first miracle performed by St. Peter, he 
says, " His name, through faith in his name, hath made this 
man strong." It would be the same to say, " His will, through 
faith in his will, hath made this man strong." It was the 
will of God through the faith of the lame man, and the faith 
of the lame man was obedience to the law of recovery, which 
was the law of God in his case. This explains every miracle 
recorded in the Bible. What is a miracle ? It is the will 
of God different from his accustomed will, which is his nat- 
ural will, or law of nature. A miracle is the will of God, dif- 
ferent from natural laws in the particular that it is unusual, 
or preternatural. God acts usually in nature, but these acts 
are in reality as miraculous as a miracle, or as an unnatural 
act ; but we are not accustomed to regard them as miraculous, 
because w r e are familiar with them. There is nothing more 
miraculous in a miracle than in a natural act, since they are 
both the manifestations of the same motive principle of the 
universe. There can be nothing miraculous about prayer, or 
about the modus operandi of any of the means of grace, be- 
cause they are usual or natural laws. They are under the 
government of the laws of nature. ' The philosophy of 
prayer, considering prayer as distinct from the grace it is 
calculated to procure, receives its explication from moral laws 
or laws of nature. An effect, similar to the effect of prayer, 
may be produced upon the human soul by sincere supplica- 



FAITH. 



209 



tion for mercy before a human tribunal, or before dumb idols. 
It works the same submission of will, the same excitement of 
animal spirits, the same " abandon" of self. Prayer is at- 
tended with a different effect, growing out of the stipulations 
of the salvation dispensation of Jesus Christ, from that which 
follows from supplication to a human authority, or to a false 
god ; but the latter instances illustrate the philosophy of 
prayer to God, by its reflex action upon the will of man. 
Prayer is a means of grace, because it is a divine institution 
having an end in view, and this end is not the result of any 
quality in prayer, as distinct from similar natural attitudes or 
natural outlay of excitement, but because it is a means of 
grace divinely instituted. God's blessing follows upon prayer, 
because it is so provided in the dispensation. Hence, the effi- 
cacy of prayer lies in this provision of the dispensation, and 
its philosophy in its tendency to suppress the repugnant will 
of the supplicant. Without this provision, prayer would be 
of no more utility than walking, or dancing, or other natural 
attitudes. Hence, prayer is useful only because it is a means 
of grace provided for that purpose ; and had walking been 
instituted, or had dancing been employed for this purpose in- 
stead of prayer, they would have been just as efficacious, but 
they would not have been as philosophically wise. But 
prayer, fasting, and repentance were instituted as means of 
grace, because their natural tendency, their philosophical 
adaptation to a given end, is to suppress the will. There is 
nothing unnatural about the forms of the Christian religion, 
and the grace of God is only unnatural because it is unusual or 
preternatural. With man, the bestowal of grace is an unnat- 
ural or miraculous thing only because it is unusual or preter- 
natural. If it were a law of nature, it would cease to be 
miraculous. 

All means of grace are essentially auxiliary institutions, 
based upon natural philosophy. They bear upon and relate, 



210 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



not to God, but to the performance by man of a condition of 
salvation. The object of prayer, fasting, the sacraments, (fee, 
is to increase our faith, considering faith as the condition of 
grace, by operating upon the will of man. If any of these 
means of grace could act directly upon God, they would at 
once cease to be means of grace, and would become, instead, 
conditions or causes of grace. Hence, means of grace are 
aids to the condition. 

Now, if this reasoning be just, we may be very much as- 
sisted in ascertaining the condition of grace by a careful con- 
sideration of the philosophy of the means of grace. With 
respect to faith, considered as the condition of grace, what is 
the natural effect of prayer, repentance, fasting, baptism, the 
sacraments, <fcc. ? What must be the character of faith, in 
order to be beneficially affected by these several means of 
grace ? Certainly, it cannot be a supernatural thing, nor can 
it be a conviction of the mind. It may very naturally and 
consistently be a submission of the will of man to the revealed 
law of Jesus Christ, because the natural effect of these several 
means of grace is to work an influence upon the human will. 

It is useful here as elsewhere to guard the reader against mis- 
taking the submission of the will to God, and the submission 
of the will to Jesus Christ, or to the revealed will of God in the 
Christian dispensation. We are always to regard means of 
grace as Christian institutions. The sinner who can submit 
his will to God is a saint at once, and is at once able to place 
himself in a state of sanctification. That this cannot natu- 
rally be done, is the very necessity that gave rise to a Chris- 
tian system. Hence, although a sinner cannot naturally 
submit his will to God, by any direct or natural ability, he 
can achieve the thing circuitously or indirectly, by using the 
means of grace, and by a dependence upon the condition of 
grace provided in the Christian dispensation. It is important 
to understand what is meant by the submission of the will to 



FAITH. 



211 



God. It is inducing the will of God to become the govern- 
ing principle of our conduct. In such a case as this, sin be- 
comes a moral impossibility, unless God can sin. If God's 
will prevails in man, God's will is the cause of human action. 
The quality that constitutes a sinful action is the sway of the 
will of man in opposition to the will of God. But suppose 
the human will is lost under the sway of the divine will, then 
an act of such a being could never be sinful, because it could 
not be repugnant to the supreme divine will. It is this re- 
pugnancy that makes the sin. Because the will of God is 
written down in a book, this circumstance must not blind 
our eyes to the fact that the writing the will of God does 
not change its character as a motive principle. It must 
have been his will before it was written, after it was writ- 
ten, and throughout all time. 

TVhat are we to understand by the will of God ? The ex- 
pression is evidently tautological. God is nothing but a 
divine will. The divine will and God mean the same princi- 
ple. The will of God is a form of expression the result of 
the infirmity of human language. The will of God in truth 
means the God of God ; since the will of God is God him- 
self. The same tautology is perceived in the expressions, 
mercy of God, or the grace of God, or the love of God. 
The motive principle of the universe is love, primarily or 
essentially. "When we employ the term God, we use it to 
denote an active first unoriginated principle of good, infinite 
in its character, and therefore possessed of perfect wisdom 
and power. TVe mean this active principle or first cause, 
when we say the will of God. The will of God is the 
purpose of this active principle of good. The purpose of 
the active principle is the principle in resolve, or the will 
of the principle. "We are unable to draw any distinction 
between the will of God and God himself. We can very 
readily perceive a distinction between the written or revealed 



212 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



will of God and God himself ; but this distinction relates to 
the revelation. It is God revealed or declared. Now when 
the revealed will of God is the ruling principle in man, 
man cannot be said to rule certainly. Man is nothing but 
a will revealed in flesh, possessed of limited and finite 
knowledge and power. In this respect he is like God. 
The will of man declared in an action is man himself, 
viewed in certain circumstances, or tangible relations. 

The man who induces the will of God to become the 
governing principle of his conduct, is governed by God ; and 
when this is voluntarily done, it is the highest exhibition 
of human perfection. That man, beyond question, is perfect, 
over whose thoughts and actions the will of God prevails. 

Hence, it is important to understand the distinction between 
the means of grace and the condition of grace ; between the 
submission of the will of man to the will of God, and the 
submission of his will to the condition of the Christian sys- 
tem. Man may naturally bring his will under subjection to 
the means of grace, and may remain a sinner, or by their aid, 
perseveringly used, he may be enabled to comply with the con- 
dition of grace, and may thereby obtain grace ; and this grace 
being God, God then rules in the man in proportion to the 
grace obtained ; and when God rules with undivided author- 
ity in man, then is he perfect. This is the highest state of 
the Christian pilgrimage. But we must not confound that 
state with the condition of grace, nor with grace as the cause 
of salvation. We are not saved by any perfection of grace, 
but by grace simply. "By grace are ye saved," says the 
apostle. Salvation is the effect of grace, and grace means 
God. To say that we are saved by grace, is but another forni 
of expression to declare that we are saved by God. TV hen 
we possess God, we are then safe. We can only possess God 
by the aid of the Christian system. " In God is safety," 
means the same thing as " by grace are ye saved." There is 



FAITH, 



213 



no safety out of God, either in this world or in the world to 
come, nor are we otherwise saved than by the will of God. 

For the purpose of enforcing the views we have taken with 
respect to the depravity of the human will — and we use de- 
pravitv in the sense of infirmity — we propose now to close 
the present investigation with an examination of the seventh 
chapter of St. Paul's letter to the Romans, which, aside from 
the importance of the doctrines it teaches, and their relative 
bearing upon the precise questions we have been discussing, 
has, we think, received very erroneous interpretations. 

The seventh chapter of Romans. — This chapter opens with 
the words, 

" Know ye not, brethren (for I speak to them that know 
the law), how that the law hath dominion over a man as 
long as he liveth ?" The difficulty here is to understand the 
law to which St. Paul referred. 

We think St. Paul is asserting the truth in moral philos- 
ophy for which David Hume contended with so much earnest- 
ness and ability — the selfish system. Man is selfish as long- 
as he is a natural man. We suppose St. Paul to refer to the 
natural inability of the sinner to avoid evil. The sinner is 
under the dominion of a law as long as he liveth under it. 
That this is the meaning of the law to which St. Paul referred 
is plain from the subject-matter on hand, as appears from the 
preceding chapter, as well as from the illustration he gives of 
his meaning in the veiy next verse. In the preceding chap- 
ter he is contrasting the law of the sinner and the law of the 
saint — the law of the carnal mind and the law of grace ; or 
the law of the natural man and the law of the spiritual man. 
It is the carnal mind, in contradistinction from the spiritual 
mind, to which the apostle refers. In that chapter he tells 
Christians to reckon themselves to be dead unto sin, i. e., freed 
from the law of the carnal mind, but alive unto God, through 
Jesus Christ our Lord, spiritually born under grace. 



214 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



It is with regard to this principle of sin, or law of the carnal 
mind, or the natural infirmity of the will, that St. Paul begins 
the seventh chapter by employing the language we have quoted. 

But the most conclusive proof upon the subject arises from 
a consideration of the figure or metaphor he uses to explain 
his meaning. He illustrates the law to which he had refer- 
ence by the figure of marriage — "For the woman which 
hath an husband, is bound by the law of her husband as long 
as he liveth ; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from 
the law of her husband." How very beautiful and striking 
is the illustration ! As long as the law of sin is the husband 
of the sinner, the sinner is bound by the law ; but if the law 
of sin be dead, by the marriage of the sinner to Christ, the 
sinner is no longer under the law of sin, but under the law of 
Christ, or grace. The sinner is compared to a married woman, 
who while her husband lives is bound by his law. 

So long as a sinner is a sinner, and to the extent of the do- 
minion of the sin, he is under the law of sin. The law of sin 
is the carnal mind. 

But if the sinner be brought under the law of grace, then 
the law of sin is dead, and he is no longer under it, but under 
grace. 

With this law his Roman brethren were very familiar, but 
certainly it is to be presumed that they knew but little of the 
moral, or especially of the Jewish Levitical law, to which 
most commentators consider St. Paul to refer. The moral 
law could not be illustrated by marriage, for its obligation is 
coeval with life, and hence could not have been referred to ; 
and the Levitical law was a law about which the Eomans 
knew but little, and cared less. But reference might very 
well be made to the law of the carnal mind, the dominion of 
lust, the sway of Satan, the slavery of sin, the infirmity of the 
religious will of the sinner ; for these Roman converts, if 
they were like other men the world over, may be supposed to 



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215 



have known the natural impossibility of loving and serving 
God aside from the system of the Christian religion. 

We paraphrase the two first verses in this way. 

" Do you not know, brethren, that the law of sin hath 
dominion over the sinner as long as it liveth ? just as the law 
of the husband hath dominion over the wife as long as he 
lives ; but if he be dead, she is freed from his law, just as the 
sinner is freed from the dominion of sin, if the law of sin be 
dead." The third verse continues the argument and the illus- 
tration : — " So then, if, while her husband liveth, she be 
married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress ; but 
if her husband be dead, she is free from that law, so that she 
is no adulteress though she be married to another man." 

That is to say, if while the law of sin hath dominion over 
you, it shall be called an adulterous act, speaking figuratively, 
to presume to be under the law of grace ; but if the law of 
sin be dead, then you are freed from that law — it is then not 
improper to be married to the law of grace : and herein is 
condemned the sin of hypocrisy. It is improper to claim to 
be a Christian while you are under the dominion of sin. 

The fourth verse says : 

u Wherefore, my brethren, ye are become dead to the law 
by the body of Christ, so that ye should be married to 
another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we 
should bring forth fruit unto God." The translation is imper- 
fect, but it conveys the meaning. The meaning we take to be this : 

Wherefore, my brethren, the law of sin, or its dominion, is 
dead in you, in virtue of the Christian religion, so that ye are 
married to another, even Christ, and you should now bring 
forth fruit unto God. 

And" he gives the reason in the fifth and sixth verses, which 
we paraphrase in this way : 

" For when we were in the flesh — by which he means the 
law of sin, or the law of the flesh — the motions of sins which 



216 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



the law of sin produced, the evil desires and evil actions 
that sprung from the dominion of sin, brought forth fruit unto 
death, — spiritual deadness : that is to say, evil desires, that 
come from the dominion of the law of sin, result in evil deeds, 
and evil deeds in moral prostitution. But now we are deliv- 
ered from the law of sin ; that being dead in consequence of 
our marriage to Christ, we should serve in newness of spirit, 
and not in the oldness of the latter, — not according to the old 
law of sin from which we are freed, but from the principle of 
the new religion of J esus Christ." 

St. Paul does not change the subject, but proceeds to ex- 
plain the religious system of Jesus Christ. He is thinking 
neither of the moral nor of the Jewish ceremonial, but of the 
Gospel and the state of sin — the dominion of fleshly lusts. 
He is contrasting the Gospel with man's natural state, which 
is a state of unavoidable sin. He is contrasting the liberty 
of the Gospel, and the effect of the Gospel, with the slavery 
of sin, and the effect of sin. 

This is done in the residue of the chapter, and closes with 
summing the whole subject in a pregnant question, and gives 
the answer covering the whole ground. 

The question is, " O, wretched man that I am, who shall 
deliver me from the body of this death ?" What body of 
death ? The dominion of sin — the law of sin, the slavery of 
the flesh, the natural inability of the sinner to arrest a course 
of sin,— spiritual deadness and moral prostitution ; the in- 
firmity of the religious will ; the malady of the fall ; the 
spiritual death ; the loss of religion ; the state of the carnal 
mind. They all mean the same thing. 

This is what St. Paul means by his question, ^ow what 
is his answer, and what the remedy ? Says he, "I thank 
God through Jesus Christ our Lord," — the Gospel is the 
remedy. The Gospel will free a sinner from the body of 
death, from the dominion of sin, from the law of sin, from 



FAITH. 



217 



the slavery of the flesh ; will remedy the natural inability 
of the sinner to arrest the course of sin ; will renew the 
religious will ; will cure the malady of the fall ; will impart 
spiritual life ; will eradicate the carnal mind ; will cure 
moral prostitution : and the ripe Christian, but former sin- 
ner, can love God with a supreme voluntary affection, and 
is like gold tried in the fire. 

Returning to the seventh verse, St. Paul says : 
" What shall we say then : is the law sin ? God forbid," 
or let it not be. "Nay, I had not known sin but by the 
law, for I had not known lust except the law had said, 
4 Thou shalt not covet.' " 

The reader is to bear in mind that St. Paul was writing to 
Gentile Christians. Gentile Christians at that day did not 
mean Jewish Christians precisely, but meant persons who 
had become Christians without any knowledge of the Jewish 
Laws or customs. They had become Christians by the law of 
the Gospel. They had found the moral law only in the law 
of the Gospel, probably without knowing that it had been 
the law of the Jews. St. Paul, considering himself specially 
delegated to administer to the Gentiles, would be very reluc- 
tant to mix the Gospel with either the Jewish statutes or 
Jewish ceremonies, when the Gospel of Jesus Christ was suffi- 
cient from every purpose that could be imagined. Hence we 
are to infer that St. Paul was referring to the law of the Gos- 
pel ; and judging from the circumstance of his supposed disin- 
clination to mix the two dispensations together, and from the 
fulness of the Gospel law, where prohibitions against coveting 
are to be found ; and from the fact to which he is about to 
refer, that the Gospel brings to light the knowledge of sin ; 
we are very much fortified in the conviction, that he had no 
special reference to the moral law as such, other than the law 
found in the Christian Scriptures. St, Paul was recommend- 
ing the Scriptures to the Roman Christians. 

10 



218 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



The moral law of the Jews was abrogated when a new dis- 
pensation came in, necessarily. When one dispensation gives 
way to another dispensation, no part of the old binds unless 
specially retained in the new. 

Hence the moral law, per se, does not bind the Christian 
conscience. Nothing binds the Christian conscience but the 
laws of the new dispensation. If a moral law of the old dis- 
pensation is retained in the new, as is the case undoubtedly, 
none of its obligatory force upon the Christian conscience 
grows out of the fact, that it was a law of the abrogated dis- 
pensation, 

Christ Jesus was the incarnation of the supreme law-giving 
power ; and of course in his presence and under his legisla- 
tion all old laws were necessarily repealed. This is charac- 
teristic of all delegated authority. Laws of a repealed dis- 
pensation are necessarily abrogated, unless specially retained. 
This philosophy is predicated upon the plain principle of an 
agency. While the principal is present, no delegated law for 
the future binds. The principal gives a delegation of duties 
and laws until he comes, or during his absence. When he 
comes, or while present and representing the fountain of 
power, these are repealed by his presence, because such a re- 
peal works not a retrospective injury. This follows from the 
consideration that the fountain of power can delegate new 
duties and laws. Being the source and fountain, the fons et 
origo, the delegation (what has gone out from him) returns, 
he being present. There can be no representation, or delega- 
tion, or deputation of the principal, if the principal be by. 
The presence of the principal abrogates the authority of the 
agency. From the very law of an agency, an agency is a 
representation. What can it represent in the presence of the 
principal ? Nothing, because the source of power is not ab- 
sent. Eepresentation implies the absence of the principal. 
Let us apply this reasoning to the present time. The Scripture 



FAITH. 



219 



is now the divine delegated transmitted law. Suppose God 
were to appear in person upon earth, with the intent to dele- 
gate a new law or new dispensation — would not the Gospel 
expire in his presence ? And would any of it bind unless it 
were incorporated into the law of the new dispensation ? f We 
think not. 

Suppose A. delegates an authority to B. to hold good until 
such time as A. should return, in order to make a new agency. 
Would not B.'s authority expire when A. returned ? Does 
not an old agency give place to a new ? And if it is true of 
men, it is, a fortiori, true of God ; since God, besides being 
infinite love, has perfect power. So when Christ appeared 
and promulged a new dispensation, the old expired from the 
necessity of the case. It was not like the case of an amend- 
ment to an old law. In that case, the old law would only 
expire where it came in conflict with the new. But Christ 
came to introduce a new dispensation. The moral law did 
not expire, and the reason why it did not expire is, because 
it was retained in the new ; but then the obligation to obey it 
ceased to lodge in the old, and located in the new. This does 
not do away with the utility of the old law or its binding 
force, it only changes the locality of the obligation. It may 
serve to throw light upon the new, and is in many ways a 
most precious and inestimable treasure. It is worthy atten- 
tive study, as an exhibition of the dealings of God with the 
children of men. But the Scripture is the only moral law now 
existing in the world. For the institution of evil we must 
look exclusively to the Scripture. We are bound to obey the 
moral law ; and why ? Because Christ retained it. His ob- 
ject in coming, he says, was not to repeal it. It would have 
been fully repealed unless he had retained it. The obligation 
to obey the Jewish moral law now, locates in the Scripture. 
Suppose a man violates now a statute of the moral law, — by 
what law will he be condemned at God's bar ? By the Jew- 



220 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



ish law ? Not at all — but by the law of the Gospel. Is it 
a sin now to violate a law of the Jewish code of morals, be- 
cause the divine sanction of the new dispensation covers it 
with its moral mantle ? Not at all. There is no sin but in 
violating Jesus Christ's commands. Hence sin is disconnect 
ed wholly from the Jewish code, and is connected with the 
Gospel. With these observations we proceed to examine St. 
Paul's meaning in the seventh verse. We think he alludes 
to the law of the Gospel. We think so, because he calls the 
law to which he was referring, spiritual, a term suiting the 
Gospel then exclusively. The moral law had ceased to be 
spiritual, or to impart spiritual life, from the advent of the 
Christian dispensation. The residue of the chapter we con- 
sider, may be understood to say : 

" What shall I say, then, is the law of the Gospel sin, since 
by it I know my sin, — since I had not known it until it had 
been prohibited by the Gospel ; but the law of sin — meaning 
the tendency to sin — having dominion over me, in view of 
the Gospel prohibitions, wrought in me, or engendered in me, 
all manner of unholy desires ; for until I knew of the pro- 
hibition, sin was dead, or could have no opportunity of viola- 
ting it : for I was alive without the law once, was, in my own 
estimate of myself, free from sin, not appearing to be dead in 
sin ; but when I came to know the law, I found myself to be 
continually violating it ; and then I died in my own opinion of 
my goodness, and the Gospel, whose design is to restore life to 
those dead in sin, I found to be death to me, since it disclosed 
to me my dead spiritual condition ; for sin, or the law of sin, 
ruling in my members, in view of the laws of the Gospel, or 
Christian prohibitions, deceived me into crime, or sin, and 
by that, slew me ; wherefore the law is holy, requiring holi- 
ness, and its commandments holy, just, and good. Was, then, 
that which is good made death unto me ? Was that which 
is good the cause of my dead moral state ? Not at all. The 



FAITH. 



221 



Gospel is not the cause of my being sinful, — it is the cause 
of my perceiving it ; but sin was the cause of my dead con- 
dition, my want of spiritual life, showing me my dead con- 
dition by the light of the Gospel, that it might appear to be 
exceedingly sinful in the light of the Gospel. For we know 
that the Gospel is spiritual, but we are carnal — sold under 
sin — under the dominion of sin naturally, and naturally un- 
able to avoid it." 

It is here necessary for the reader to bear in mind the dis- 
tinctions we have elsewhere drawn between the natural abil- 
ity to avoid sin, and the natural ability to obey the commands 
of Jesus Christ. We have no natural ability to avoid the 
choice of sin. This ability comes from the Christian system — 
is in virtue of obedience to the condition of this ability. This 
ability to avoid sin is conditional, and this condition is the 
condition of the Christian system. But our ability to o"bey 
this condition is a very different question from the one of the 
natural ability to avoid the consequences of a state where we 
are not benefited by the ability that can alone come from the 
Christian system. 

We have no natural ability to avoid sin ; but we have an 
ability to do something that will give us an ability to avoid 
it. That is to say, we are able to obey Jesus Christ, and this 
obedience imparts the other ability. So that we get rid of 
the mastery of the law of sin in our members, or of the ten- 
dency to sin, by obeying Christ, which latter obedience all 
men can render, since the system is a divine will revealed to 
us. Let us proceed with the quotation : 

" So great is this deadness — this spiritual bondage — that 
the best I can do, I do not allow or adjudge to be good ; for, 
what I desire to do, I am unable to perform ; but what I 
hate — even the sins I hate — those sins I commit. This being 
so, / cannot be said to commit what I hate so much as the 
law of sin, or the dominion of the carnal mind, that dwelleth 



222 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY . 



in me ; for I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, in my 
natural state, dwelleth no good thing, for to will is present 
with me. I have a strong inclination to do good ; but I find 
dwelling in me no ability to perform it ; for the good I desire 
to do, I do not ; but the evil I had rather not do, that I do. 
Now, if I do that I would not — if I find the dominion of sin 
leading me into sins I despise, it is not I, but the mastery of 
sin. I find a law that when I would do good, evil is present 
with me ; for after the inward man, or after my calm reflec- 
tion or better judgment, I admire the beauty of virtue, and 
extremely desire it, but I see another law in my members, 
warning against this calm desire to be good and virtuous, 
which brings me into subjection to the evil tendency of my 
state." He then says, " Nothing will remedy this fallen con- 
dition, this paralysis of the religious will, but the Gospel 
system of Jesus Christ, with its practical condition." Men 
can only avoid sin by becoming Christians. 

The same argument is continued in the next chapter. He 
says, "There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them 
which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but 
after the spirit." This evidently looks to two distinct princi- 
ples of action in men. There being but one principle of ac- 
tion, in its abstract or seminal state, the principle of action in 
bad men, called the law of sin, must mean the love of sin, 
since love is the original principle of action. Man may act 
from the love of good, and he may act from the love of evil, 
but he cannot act from any other motive principle, because 
there is none other. God never acts from the love of good. 
This is what distinguishes God from man. God does not act 
from the love of good, because that would imply that he acts 
from a motive superior to, or aside from himself. He does 
not, and cannot act from the love of good, because he is 
goodness itself ; and hence, when God acts, it is goodness it- 
self in action, not acting from any motive. God does not 



FAITH. 



223 



act from a motive, because lie is the only motive. When 
God acts it is motive acting. But it is different with man. 
He acts from a motive, and it is this motive that makes him 
good or bad. If he acts from the motive of love of good, 
his act is a good action ; if he acts from the love of evil, his 
act is a bad action. There is no good motive in this proba- 
tionary life, that is not a revealed motive. The Scriptures 
are revealed motives. Hence a man may think he acts from 
a good motive, but the goodness of the motive does not de- 
pend upon man's thoughts, but upon the revelation of it. It 
is a good motive if it is a revealed motive. Man may, and 
does act from two motives, the love of good, or God, or the 
love of evil, but love is the only motive principle in the universe. 
The distinction between a good and a bad man does not lie 
in their acting from a derived divine power, or endowment 
of action, or imparted motive, because they are both God's 
creatures, and live and move in him, and exist by his sus- 
taining power ; but then the difference arises from the fact, 
that the good man chooses to act from the love of good, or 
from the love of God, and the wicked man chooses to act 
from the motive of evil, or from love of evil, which is the 
will of Satan. Free agency consists in the freedom of this 
choice. God desires voluntary affection, and this voluntary 
affection is the choice of God, instead of the choice of evil : 
is the choice of the motive of God to the choice of the mo- 
tive of evil, when the opposite choice was within man's reach. 
The idea of sin is connected with this choice of motives. 
Hence the notion of penitence for sin, as the result of an im- 
proper choice, is original with the Jews. No trace of it can 
be found in the classic lore of antiquity. Grief for an im- 
proper choice of motive of action is unknown except among 
the Hebrews. With pagan nations, virtue meant restraint 
upon animal passions, and vice their indulgence or excessive 
indulgence ; but they were acquainted with no such senti- 



224 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



ment as joy or penitence for a chosen motive. When the 
Hebrews acted from love of God, joy was the consequence. 
When they acted from the love of evil, penitence was the 
consequence of the unfortunate choice of the motive of the ac- 
tion. Hence, if a man has not the spirit of Christ, he is none 
of his. God is the spirit of Christ. Hence we behold but 
two principles in man, — the love of evil and the love of 
good. St. Paul refers to these two principles by various 
forms of speech. " For they that are after the flesh/' says 
he, il do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after 
the spirit, the things of the spirit." That is to say, they that 
are under the government of the love of evil, desire evil 
things ; and they that are under the government of the love 
of good, desire the things of God. He says, " If the spirit 
of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he 
that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your 
mortal bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in you." This 
alludes to the predominance of the motive of good, since God 
is the only motive of good in the universe. If good motives 
control our actions, we are simply controlled by God. We 
choose God when we choose a good motive. We cannot 
choose a good motive without choosing God. To say other- 
wise would involve the solecism of two original first causes of 
good. 

To be carnally minded is death : that is to say, when a 
man is controlled by the motive of love of evil, he is dead. 
To be spiritually minded is life : that is to say, to be con- 
trolled by the love of God, is life. A sinner is spiritually 
dead, and a Christian spiritually alive, because the first acts 
from the motive of evil, and the other from the motive of 
good. Hence it is that Adam died when he preferred the 
motive of love of evil, to the contrary motive of love of good. 
The death of the body has no relation to a system of religion. 
It only closes probation. The love of evil is manifested in 



FAITH. 



225 



those acts directed towards worldly gain, for the good there 
may be in it. It is evil to love the creature more than the 
creator, and it is this love that characterizes the sinner. 
This chapter of St. Paul's letter to the Roman Christians is 
just as useful now, and just as applicable to Christians now, 
in every sentence and line of it, as at the day when the ink 
was scarcely dry upon the parchment on which it was 
transcribed. 

We propose to make the experiment. 

Are not Christians of the present day aware of the law of 
a natural state, or a state of sin ? Are they not fully sensi- 
ble that as long as they are married to this natural condition 
they are bound by it ? Do they not know that when the 
condition of sin or spiritual deadness is gone, in consequence 
of a marriage to a new husband, even the Christian religion, 
or the law of grace, they are no longer under the dominion 
of the law of the dead husband, or the law of sin ? Do they 
not know that while they were in the flesh, iu their natural 
and carnal state, the motions of sin in their members brought 
forth sins unto death ? What more natural in the mouth of 
a sinner who hears it for the first time, than the inquiry, 
Can the Gospel be sin, when it has the effect of disclosing 
sin ! Is that a sin which brings sin to light ! God forbid, 
or " let it not be," would be the reply. Who now would 
have known that it was a sin even to entertain a desire to 
possess the property of other people, unless the law of the 
Gospel had said, thou shalt not covet \ What Christian of 
the present day does not know that whenever he watches his 
heart in respect to the prohibition against improper desires, 
he finds all manner of concupiscence brought to light \ Does 
he not know that he was alive without the law once : that 
is, he felt quite good in the absence of the moral law of the 
Gospel, and quite secure and unconcerned, and that when 
the commandment or the law of the Gospel came, sin revived 
10* 



226 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



or came to life, or into distinct view — their sinful state 
becoming manifest in its light — and that all self-righteous- 
ness then " died" within him ? Do Christians not know that 
the law of the Gospel is ordained to produce spiritual life, 
and that the mastery of sin is spiritual death ? Do they not 
know from past experience, that what they do in their sinful 
state they cannot sanction or allow to be good, for what they 
would do, they do not do, however they may wish to do it ; 
but that although they really hate their sins, still they find 
themselves led into their reluctant commission ? And is it not 
apparent that when a person does a thing he does not approve, 
this very conscientiousness is the proof that he approves of 
the prohibition against it ; and that when he is led away by 
the dominion of sin, or the habit, it is not so much himself or 
his own will that goes, as it is the habit that drives him ] Do 
Christians not know that in their natural state dwelleth no 
good, for while in that state, although they may desire to do 
good, they have not the ability aside from the Christian sys- 
tem ; that hence it is, that they find a law, or a tendency to 
sin, or an infirmity of the religious will, that when they would 
do good, evil, or the love of evil, prevails over them ; and that 
in the quiet recesses of the mind there is an involuntary trib- 
ute paid to the beauty of virtue, but that another law in their 
members in opposition to the law of virtue, and warring against 
the law of virtue, brings them into subjection and captivity to 
the tendency to sin ? In view of this wretched state, pro- 
duced by the ruin of the fall, this tendency to sin, this paraly- 
sis of the religious will, this law of the flesh, this spiritual death, 
this carnal mind, this enmity against God, how natural for 
them to exclaim, O ! wretched men that we are, who shall 
deliver us from the body of this death ? St. Paul's answer to 
the question is the system of the ^Christian religion, — 
" Through Jesus Christ our Lord." 

The explication of the doctrine of faith as the condition 



FAITH. 



227 



of grace, as we have given it, would be attended with the 
most substantial blessings to the human family. It would 
be like oil upon the agitated waves of contention among the 
followers of Jesus, not by producing a dead calm of inactivity, 
or prone uniformity of unreasoning credulity, either in mind 
or morals. It would remove all bitterness from religious dis- 
cussions, as it would remove all objection against differences 
of opinion. An erroneous opinion would come to be con- 
sidered as defective knowledge, and whenever it became a 
sin, pardonable, as are all other sins in the entire decalogue, 
upon the terms of the condition, and punishable by Jesus 
Christ, and not by man. It would make the Christian sys- 
tem the most practical system that was ever devised. A 
man obedient to Jesus Christ, is necessarily honest, benevo- 
lent, charitable, industrious, kind, and affectionate, easy to 
be entreated, meek, humble, patient, rendering good for evil, 
no wrangler, no tyrant, no debtor, but in all the relations of 
life a kind, active, honest, and loving brother. It saves all 
that have grace, since grace is God. It makes grace the 
cause of justification ; hence men may be saved upon dying 
beds, in the extreme verge of life. It makes obedience of the 
will to Jesus Christ the condition of justification ; hence none 
can obtain the grace of God, who are not obedient to Jesus 
Christ in thought and practice. It consistently saves the 
thief on the cross, the Phillippian jailor, all the apostles, and 
all the patriarchs, Adam and Eve, all the Roman Catholics, 
all the Episcopalians, all the Methodists, all the Baptists, all 
the Arians, all the Unitarians, all kinds and classes of creeds 
of men who have obeyed J esus Christ, and thereby procured 
the grace of God ; since it makes the grace of God the cause 
of safety, and obedience the cause of grace. It would damn 
the apostle Paul himself, with all his unequalled supernatu- 
ral accuracy of religious comprehension, upon the supposi- 
tion that he was disobedient to Jesus Christ. It furnishes 



228 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



us with a practical test of religion, so that we are able to 
brand the hypocrite with unerring sagacity. We can judge 
him by his fruits. His disobedience will betray him. It 
does not allow us to be deluded with a presumed mental 
monition, or a supposed supernatural intellectual conviction. 
It brings all men up to the same mark and standard. Are 
you obedient to Jesus Christ, and do you bring forth the 
fruit of the grace of God ? — the obedience being the condi- 
tion, and grace the fruit-bearing principle ; the fruit being the 
test of the grace, and the obedience the condition. It makes 
obedience without grace as valueless as a cipher; it makes 
the possibility of grace without obedience a deception. Obe- 
dience must not be feigned, assumed, worn for occasions, 
but must be radical, must penetrate to the seat of action, 
and must sanctify the fountain, and there there must be an 
entire, undivided, and simple devotion and consecration to 
God. The submission must amount to undivided trust in 
God, in which trust the human will is lost, is volunta- 
rily surrendered, so that the Christian lives in God, moves 
in God, and in God has his being. Love is the radical 
submission of the will, and therefore whoever hateth his 
brother is a murderer ; therefore whoso hath this world's 
goods, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up 
his bowels of compassion against him, the love of God can- 
not dwell in him, since this conduct is the fruit of disobe- 
dience. Had the love of God dwelt in him, or what is 
precisely the same thing, had grace, or God dwelt in him, 
it would necessarily have brought forth the fruit of obedi- 
ent love, since God works by love whether in the Christian 
or otherwise. Hence the Christian who does not bring 
forth fruit, charges God, by his action, with the guilt of 
hypocrisy. God is the Christian principle of the Christian, 
and God cannot act otherwise than from love, and hence 
the presumed Christian who does not act from love, does not 



FAITH. 



229 



act from God, and consequently is a hypocrite, or one of 
weak faith. When God's will has sway, whether in a Chris- 
tian or out of the Christian, it always eventually brings forth 
the fruit of love. " He that committeth sin is of the devil." 
" Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ V 
" Whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God 
perfected : hereby know we that we are in him." Whoso 
keepeth his word is thereby obedient to him, and whoso is 
obedient to Christ verily hath the love of God : hath God in 
him, and God worketh in him to will, and to do, of his good 
pleasure. All that the Christian has to do is to get the act- 
ive principle of good to prevail over his will, and when that 
is done, God dwelleth in him, and God brings forth good 
fruit by necessary consequence. If any man love the world, 
the love of the Father is not in him, and whoso denieth the 
Son hath not the Father, since obedience to Christ is the 
only way to obtain the love of God, which is the Father 
himself. 

The intellect not having been made a party in the fall, is 
not derelict, and nothing it can do (and it can do nothing, it 
can only disclose) can be a religious or an irreligious act, since 
it cannot act at all. It only discloses : it cannot even per- 
ceive. The will perceives : the will thinks. 

The party upon probation in this world whom we call man, 
is will, or volition — has material organs through which it per- 
ceives, sees, hears, tastes, feels. Hence we say this will, thus 
perceiving, seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling, living in a fabri- 
cated house of clay, is put upon probation in a material 
world, with good and evil set before him. If he wills good, 
he wills God : if he chooses evil, he wills evil. Volition, or 
the department in man in which is located the religious 
principle, the principle of choice in view of motives, in rela- 
tion to good and evil, does not exhibit itself in material 
organs, although it lives in a clay tenement. Hence religion 



230 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

is the unison of this principle with God, which is the effect 
of choosing God. When God is chosen, righteousness is 
chosen, grace is chosen. Thus we say the life of the will is 
the choice of God. The life of the soul is unison with God. 
The soul of man is alive wdien God or grace dwells in it. 
Bear in mind that as it is the will of man that is put on 
trial, there is no difference between the soul and the will. 
The human volition is the human soul. This remark also 
is true of God. God's will is God himself ; hence the will of 
God is the spirit of God. God is a spirit, God is will, God 
is love ; hence God and spirit, and will, and love, as applied 
to the first cause, mean God, or good infinite. Man was 
created good finite, or God finite, or love finite, or will finite. 
They all mean the same thing. There is but one original 
first cause ; hence all emanations from the first cause, must 
be a portion of the first cause. God is in every thing, because 
good is in every thing. But the good finite, the love finite, 
the God finite, the will finite, was placed in a house of fab- 
ricated clay, and put upon a probation upon this earth, vol- 
untarily to choose good or evil, with the penalty hanging 
over it, that if it should choose evil it should die ; i. e., should 
no longer be able to choose good, having chosen evil. Hence 
after it fell, it continued to choose evil. It could not do other- 
wise than choose evil, since it could not choose good, in the 
respect being dead. This was the case with the human family 
in the persons of their original parents, when they died to the 
choice of good. Had no restoration intervened, the whole 
posterity of these dead parents — spiritually dead parents — 
would have been under a moral necessity forever to choose 
evil. The possibility of salvation was out of the question. 
The choice had been made and the trial had closed. 

They had voluntarily placed themselves beyond the pale of 
rescue, and could not complain. It was a fair trial, or they 
would never have been punished. The human family were 



FAITH. 



231 



thus circumstanced when the restoration came in. They were 
restored, inasmuch as a new choice was extended to them. 
The experiment of probation was retried under different cir- 
cumstances. It was continued under a mediatorial system of 
salvation laws. Adam's sin must necessarily have been par- 
doned, for without pardon there could be no new trial. 
Try a man who is under a law to choose evil forever ! It 
would have been preposterous. Could Adam or his posterity 
ever expect forgiveness for the first sin under the Christian 
system ? Certainly not ; for the plain reason that that would 
be trying and judging him under an ex post facto law. 
The Christian system could have no retrospective efficacy, 
without stultifying the divine lawgiver. The primal sin was 
not committed under the Christian system of salvation laws, 
and consequently could not be pardoned under it. It was ab- 
solutely necessary that this calamity of the fall, this unavoid- 
able tendency to choose evil, should be gotten out of the way. 
God could not do it, because he could hold no intercourse 
with a sinner by direct action. This was the conjunction that 
demanded the blood of Jesus Christ, because without the 
shedding of blood there could be no remission of sin. Christ, 
at the price which the scriptural history discloses, obtained 
Adam's pardon, and then God gave the human family a new 
probation, under the system of the Christian religion. The 
laws of the Christian system began to run, then, after Adam 
became a guiltless man. Hence, his posterity are all born 
guiltless, from the same cause that exonerated the parent. 
They are born guiltless, and have to run a trial or probation 
under the system of Jesus Christ. Hence, before they can ob- 
tain the benefit of the Christian religion, they have to choose 
it by complying with its condition. Man's free agency, then, 
is tied to a condition. Faith being then the submission of the 
will, and the submission of the will being the declared love of 
the will, the unity of the faith must mean the unity of love. 



232 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



This allows of differences of opinion. It is mere nonsense to 
say that a unity of love cannot subsist in connection with dif- 
ferences of opinion. Unity of the faith is conformity of 
Christian affection, not uniformity of theological knowledge, 
not identity of mental creeds. 

The want of unity in religious creeds, as theological knowl- 
edge, is expressly contemplated and provided for in the word 
of God. But there can possibly be no want of conformity 
in the justifying cause of salvation, since that is love, is grace, 
is God. There is but one condition, one cause of justification, 
one Saviour, and one God. Hence, there can be but one 
religion, and that religion is God, or grace, or love. 

In the third chapter of the letter to the Corinthians, there 
are eight verses that we suppose to bear upon this aspect of 
the subject : " For other foundation can no man lay than is 
laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if any man build upon 
this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, w r ood, hay, stub- 
ble, every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day 
shall declare it ; because it shall be revealed by fire, and the 
fire shall try every man's work, of wmat sort it is : if any 
man's work abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall re- 
ceive a reward ; if any man's work shall be burned, he shall 
suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved so as by fire. Know 
ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the spirit of 
God dwelleth in you ? If any man defile the temple of 
God, him shall God destroy." 

This language cannot be well misunderstood. It teaches 
that whoso defileth the temple of God, him shall God de- 
stroy ; but whoso buildeth upon the foundation of Jesus 
Christ, wood, hay, stubble, that shall be burned (theological 
opinions that shall prove to be w T rong) — the opinions shall 
perish, but he himself shall be saved, so as by fire. "Whoso 
teaches correct opinions shall have his reward. There can by 
no conceivable possibility be but two interpretations put upon 



FAITH. 



233 



the language of this inspired writer with regard to the " gold, 
silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble," built upon the 
foundation of Jesus Christ. They must either mean opinions 
or conduct. It is plain they cannot mean both, and it is 
equally plain they cannot mean sinful conduct ; because^ un- 
questionably, sinful conduct defiles the temple, and whoso 
defiles the temple, him shall God destroy. They must, there- 
fore, beyond controversy, mean theological opinions. 

The man who builds theological opinions, denominated 
"wood, hay, stubble," to indicate their relative erroneous 
character, shall suffer the loss of his erroneous opinions, but 
he himself, if he does not defile the temple by sinful conduct, 
shall be saved. This is consistent, rational, philosophical. 
We think we can show it to be scriptural. The apostle says, 
further, in connection with this subject, that "if any man 
among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become 
a fool, that he may become wise ; for the wisdom of this 
world is foolishness with God ; for it is written, he taketh the 
wise in their own craftiness." The term " wise," in this sen- 
tence, has a special reference to the subject of the investiga- 
tion under the apostle's review, viz., the utterance of theologi- 
cal opinions, good, bad, and indifferent — gold, silver, stubble. 
The utterance of creeds is therefore no very commendable 
work. "Therefore," he tells the Corinthians, "let no man 
glory in men," that is, in this connection, " let no man glory in 
men," however successful they may be in deducing from the 
Bible correct theological doctrines. All theological doctrines 
are drawn from the Bible, and the credit of them is due to 
the source, and not to the deducer. This distinction we should 
always remember. We are not to give glory to sage doc- 
tors in divinity, for it is God that giveth the law and the 
increase thereof. This may be a very unpleasant doctrine to 
cliques in religion, but then it is St. Paul's advice. He tells 
these simple-minded members of the Corinthian church, and 



234 



TRUE THEOEY OF CHRISTIANITY . 



hence members of all other churches, not to glory in men for 
any thing they can do or think ; for God knoweth the thoughts 
of the wise, that they are vain ; for that all things were theirs, 
whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or 
death, or things present, or things to come, all were theirs of ori- 
ginal right, because they were Ch?'isfs, and Christ was God's. 
How strong, and yet consoling is this pungent reasoning ! 
How this doctrine makes the word, the written word of Jesus 
Christ, stand out in undiminished and solitary magnificence ! 

But these doctrines are made much more plain by a care- 
ful consideration of the 14th chapter of St. Paul's letter to the 
Roman church. " Him that is weak in the faith," says he, 
" receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations," or as it is 
translated in the marginal reading of the English version of 
the Bible, "not to judge his doubtful thoughts." What! 
tell a Christian church not to judge doubtful thoughts — not 
inquire into the creed of a member ! Can St. Paul mean 
this ? Whom are we to understand by " him that is weak in 
the faith," whose doubtful thoughts the Roman church was 
not to judge ? By him that is weak in the faith, St. Paul 
means, most unquestionably, one who entertained erroneous 
theological doctrines. Of this there cannot be the shadow of 
a doubt. 

Let us examine the question calmly, and in the fear of God. 
We think it can be made to appear, that the apostle not only 
directed the Eoman church to receive one who entertained 
erroneous theological doctrines, but specially instructed it not 
to constitute itself the judge of his erroneous doctrines, nor to 
enter into doubtful disputations with him. And he furnishes 
to this church, in the fourth verse, the most conclusive reason 
why it was improper for it to do such a thing. The reason 
is, that " to his own master he standeth or falleth." Christ 
has not delegated the specific authority to determine by 
church authority doctrinal disagreements. The decision of 



FAITH. 



235 



disputed points of doctrine, when brought into connection 
with the other question of the right of church membership, or 
the kindness of reciprocal church association, is referred by St. 
Paul to another tribunal, different and distinct from that of 
church or ecclesiastical convocations, or uninspired written com- 
pendiums. In order to show quite conclusively that St. Paul 
alluded to one who entertained erroneous theological doctrines, 
by the words "him that is weak in the faith," it is only 
necessary to exhibit prominently the two examples the apostle 
himself furnishes in illustration of his meaning, and which he 
discusses very fully in this chapter. This eminent apostle, 
who probably more than all the other inspired writers elabo- 
rated the doctrines of the atonement, having, in the words we 
have quoted, inculcated the lesson that the Roman church 
should receive one weak in the faith, proceeds with guarded 
circumspection and far-seeing wisdom, in the two examples 
he gives, to explain and limit his meaning. The accurate 
Bible reader need not be told, that in the two instances of 
differences of opinion alluded to by the apostle, the error was 
obviously upon the part of those desiring to be admitted to 
fellowship among the Roman Christians. Notwithstanding 
the error was upon the part of him who sought to be admit- 
ted into church fellowship ; and notwithstanding it was declar- 
ed to be error by an authority from whose infallibility upon 
the point there could be no appeal nor possibility of mistake, 
for it was the apostle himself ; yet, his reception was made a 
moral duty binding upon the consciences of those Christians, 
and also binding upon the consciences of all succeeding Chris- 
tians in all succeeding ages in similar circumstances, to whom 
application may be made for the privilege of church fellow- 
ship, with an acknowledged difference of creed existing, and 
when the party applying is obviously and manifestly in the 
wrong. And it is furthermore deducible that if Christ Jesus 
were himself now upon earth, having control of any church, 



236 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



he would forbid the exclusion of any applicant for the privi- 
lege of church advantages, upon the ground of the erroneous 
theological opinions of the applicant. This is strong language, 
but we are borne out by the word of God and by the example 
of Christ himself, to which we now appeal. Upon the 
examination of the chapter it will be found that the points of 
difference between the applicant at Rome and the Roman 
Christians involved the important question to the Jews and 
to the Christians, of the binding force of the Jewish religion, 
which had been instituted by God himself, under circum- 
stances of unexampled solemnity, and which was once as 
binding as the forms of the Christian religion are at this day. 

Those who will attentively study this important chapter, 
which has not had the consideration paid to it which its 
importance demands, because its legitimate exposition has the 
direct tendency to demolish the distinction, and hence the 
pride of religious cliques, will discover that the questions 
brought to the attention of the Roman church were with re- 
gard to the obligation of the law of Moses upon the disciple 
of Christ. It is not possible to conceive of more important 
questions, because they involve the authenticity of two divine 
dispensations. It is hence a much more important question 
than one affecting the proper construction of any part of 
either one of the two dispensations. It is a conflict of dis- 
pensations. The institutions of the Jewish lawgiver, whose 
legation by divine authority is not to be disputed, were the 
institutions of God, and were irrepealable except by the same 
high authority which had instituted them. They were not 
all of them abolished, and are not abolished at this day, but 
are still binding on the Christian conscience. We allude to 
eating blood as an article of food, strangled animals, and such 
as have been sacrificed to idols. The institutions, types, and 
ceremonies of the Mosaic dispensation were designed to pre 
figure the Messiah. Whenever therefore, Shiloh, who was 



FATfH. 



237 



the substance of these Jewish ceremonies, came, the shadows 
gave way. But the law and the lawgiver were not to depart 
from between the feet of Judah until Shiloh came. Nor were 
they then to depart unless Shiloh refused to retain them in 
the incoming dispensation. Those who surrendered those 
shadows, thereby acknowledged that Jesus Christ was Shiloh. 
Those who did not, did not credit his Messiahship. Hence 
it became the great question of the day. Who can conceive 
a greater or a more exciting question ? The imagination 
falters under it. If the Messiah had come, the institutions of 
Moses were not only abolished, but their observance at once 
became the most glaring and pernicious act of heresy. If he 
had not come, then they were one and all binding upon the 
general conscience. The penalty and sanction were nothing 
less than eternal life or death. This question was not only 
of vital consequence intrinsically, but it was hotly contested 
during the lifetime of the apostles. Indeed the dispute, with 
regard to the binding force of the institutions of Moses, was 
warmly contested and debated in the presence and among the 
members of the apostolical college of fishermen, over which 
the simple-minded fisherman, the son of Zebedee, sat as presi- 
dent. It was the apple of discord in the young life of the 
church. It was with reference to this question that St. Paul 
declared of St. Peter, " I withstood him to the face, because 
he was to be blamed." St. Peter himself was not, on this 
question, at all times sound in his theological propriety. 

It is an extremely interesting 'circumstance connected with 
the point we have in hand, and growing out of the question 
in dispute between St. Paul and St. Peter, and one which ex- 
hibits the enlarged tolerance of the former vicegerent of Jesus 
Christ, that in this chapter he directs the Roman church to 
receive one who concurred in opinion with St. Peter, and dif- 
fered from St. Paul, when St. Paul was in the right and St. 
Peter in the wrong. 



238 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



The two instances mentioned by St. Paul, in the chapter 
now under review, had reference — the one to the eating pro- 
hibited meats, and the other, to the solemnity due to partic- 
ular days. These are questions not very interesting now, it is 
to be admitted, because the excitement with regard to them 
has measurably died away. But they are intrinsically very 
important points. With respect to one of them — the solem- 
nity due to particular days — the controversy is being carried 
on even at the present day with much outlay of religious 
feeling. The obligation of the Jewish sabbath is a question 
now warmly agitated, and of very difficult settlement. Let 
none have the hardihood to say that any question affecting 
the conscience can be an unimportant one. If he thinks so, 
let him listen to St. Paul in this chapter ; and with regard to 
eating prohibited meats. St. Paul says expressly, that those 
who were under the conviction that the Jewish prohibitions 
with regard to meat were still binding, or who even doubted 
— who were not fully convinced that they were abolished — " is 
damned if he eat" although the eating itself was perfectly 
harmless. He is damned because " he eateth not of faith." 
Let those who surrender their honest conviction, although 
erroneous, take careful warning from this divine instruction. 

Let us look at this precise point, raised by St. Paul, in its 
proper light. He establishes the doctrine, that if an action 
be intrinsically harmless, yet if a Christian is under the con- 
viction that it is not so, but that on the contrary it is sin- 
ful, he is damned, or condemned, if he commits the action ; 
and for this theology St. Paul gives the reason. He says the 
Christian is condemned because he does the action without 
" faith," or not " of faith." How are we to understand this 
reasoning ? The Christian who thinks he is violating God's 
law, is as criminal in the sight of God as if it were a law, for the 
evil intention is present — the sinful intention — and that consti- 
tutes with. God the evil of every action. A man may sinfully 



FAITH. 



239 



steal his own property, supposing it to be another's, if the 
animo furandi be present. Whoever acts from the love 
or preference of evil, commits an evil action, though it may 
lead him into the external worship of God. And why ? 
Because these acts are evil ? No. But because the intent 
or motive is sinful. The same reasoning is true, even if a 
Christian does a thing intrinsically commendable. He thinks 
it is wrong, and when he does it he commits a sin, because 
he is under the government of the motive of evil. This ap- 
plies also to church creeds, as well as other things. His in- 
tent is to violate a law of God, and it is the intent that con- 
stitutes the sin. Now we clearly understand St. Paul's 
reasoning. He is damned, because " he eateth not of faith ;" 
». e., does not submit his will to the will of God ; prefers his 
will, in opposition to what he believes to be the will of God. 

St. Paul even carries this doctrine still farther. If one 
Christian erroneously esteems an action to be evil, another 
Christian who commits the act, commits a sin, if thereby he 
makes his brother to stumble. The character of the Christian 
is a very large improvement upon the character of the gen- 
tleman. You will look in vain in the code of the worldly 
gentleman, for any such elevated and self-sacrificing principle 
of action as this. We are to respect persons holding erro- 
neous theological opinions, and not to abuse them ; not to 
burn them. We are even to love them the more on account 
of their defective theological knowledge, upon the precise 
ground established by our Saviour himself, that the sheep 
that has gone astray should be more the object of love and 
solicitude than the ninety and nine that agree with us in 
sentiment. 

The great errors Christians make, are, 1. in not properly 
comprehending the rule of right, and, 2. in applying the rule, 
as they systematically do, to actions, rather than to motives. 
What is the rule of right and wrong in respect to the morality 



240 TKUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



of human actions ? How we are to know whether a partic- 
ular action, or a particular line of conduct, is good or bad — 
justifiable or unjustifiable — is the great question that under- 
lies all philosophical investigations of religious truth. jNTo 
proposition is more undeniably true, than that no action or 
no particular line of conduct can be bad or wrong, that is the 
product of good and proper motives. 

But then the great question claims attention, What con- 
stitutes good and proper motives ? As a Christian, we an- 
swer, only the authority and sanction of the Gospel Scriptures. 

No motive, therefore, is good and proper, that does not 
find a sanction for it there, however the actor may feel, or 
whatever he may think, or whatever may be his opinions 
and purposes and inclinations. An action may then be bad 
when the actor may design only a good and proper action, 
since not the design of the actor, but the Gospel Scriptures, 
is the rule of the propriety or morality of it. 

The man who performs an action from what appears to 
his mind to be a benevolent purpose or from kind intentions, 
may nevertheless perform a wrong action, an action intrin- 
sically immoral, if the Scriptures be the rule of the morality 
of the motives of an action instead of the purposes or inclina- 
tions of the actor. This shows the necessity of applying the 
rule to the motives of the actor rather than to the action. 

Without intending to interfere with the question of invol- 
untary servitude, we may be permitted to illustrate the phil- 
osophical principle we are educing by a reference to it. 

It may be admitted that slavery is a moral evil, yet it 
does not therefore follow that opposition to it is a right action 
— or, in other words, is not an immoral action. And why ? 
Simply because the rule of the morality of an action does not 
attach itself to, or grow out of the dispositions and feelings 
of the actor, but lodges or is to be found in the Gospel Scrip- 
tures ? Do the Scriptures sanction a violation of the legal 



FAITH. 



241 



bonds of society by all persons and upon all occasions 8 Op- 
position to involuntary servitude may seem to be the dictate 
of benevolence, and persons who oppose it may be influenced 
by very kind intentions, and yet the opposition may be im- 
moral, and therefore sinful, since the source and standard of 
morality is lodged in the Scriptures as the divine law, rather 
than in the supposed purity of the designs of the actor. No 
motives are pure unless sanctioned by Gospel laws. TVe 
may conceive it to be very proper and very benevolent to do 
many things — to rid the world, as well as to rid individuals, 
of many oppressive evils that are burdensome to them ; but, 
then, the other question would claim attention — is it proper 
to effectuate this riddance at the hands of human actors with- 
out regard to the standard of moral motives ? 

A parent, involved in abject poverty, may think it a purely 
kind and benevolent act to take the life of a child, in order 
to rid it of its sufferings on earth, both present and prospec- 
tive, and pass it immediately to the peaceful skies, and yet 
the act would be criminal, not because the intention, the dis- 
position, the feelings of the actor were not benevolent, but 
because the morality of an action does not find its origin in 
human feelings. 

Parodoxical as it may seem, it is true that many well-in- 
tentioned men may be very bad and dangerous men in their 
actions, whenever they act from the feelings of the heart 
rather than from the inflexible standard of right, the revealed 
will of that Being who can alone define the boundaries of 
right and wrong. 

Hence, we say, emphatically, that no motives to an action 
are good, however congenial to human feelings, unless sanc- 
tioned by the Gospel, if the Gospel be the revealed word of 
God. 

In this connection we are to bear in mind that to say a 
thing is morally evil, is equivalent to saying that it is divinely 
11 



242 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



prohibited. We are also to bear in mind that all disagree- 
able social or political relations are not moral evils : for it is 
not the disagreeableness of a thing that makes it evil, but the 
divine prohibition. We are also to bear in mind that the 
source of all human good is the divine commandments. In 
other words, good actions are those only that are sanctioned 
by divine commands, and evil actions those prohibited by 
divine enactments. So that we are led again to conclude 
that the rule of good and evil is to be found only in the Gos- 
pel Scriptures. 

Hence, there are no social, no political, no moral, no nat- 
ural rights or wrongs that do not find their sanction and 
support, or their origin and manifestation, in this authentic 
declaration of the divine mind. 

A very important distinction is to be observed with respect 
to the sin of holding erroneous opinions. We must never 
lose sight of the cardinal doctrine, that every wrong opinion 
is a wrong by whomever entertained. Human opinions can 
never alter the fundamental distinctions of right and wrong. 
These distinctions are established by God. Hence an er- 
roneous opinion is an error and a wrong, even if entertained 
by the entire world of mankind without an exception. No 
human authority can ever sanction an erroneous doctrine. 
There is not a word or a sentiment in the Christian Scriptures 
tolerant of human error, or of false theological opinions. 
That men are accountable for their opinions, there cannot be 
the shadow of a doubt; and at the har of God the account 
will be strictly adjusted. It is the greatest heresy of the age 
to suppose that the Christian religion has any tolerance for 
errors of opinion. There is no ground for such a supposition 
within the lids of the Bible. 

Infidelity, great or minute, is one of the grossest sins a 
rational being can commit. For fear of misconstruction, we 
desire to be extremely emphatic upon this point. And it is 



FAITH. 



243 



also a sin to profess belief unless the belief be genuine. God 
loves truth in the inward parts. 

The only point upon this subject that we consider worthy 
of special attention is, that God has not instituted in this 
world a tribunal to adjust punishment in any shape, from 
the slightest reproachful word to that of fire and faggot, for 
the sin of erroneous opinions. This is a sin that goes along 
with other sins. They are to be punished at the bar of God, 
not at the tribunal of human authority. " Vengeance is mine, 
saith the Lord, I will repay." 

The Christian is expressly forbidden to indulge an unkind 
thought, much less an unkind action, by way of opposition 
to persons entertaining supposed erroneous opinions. This 
is either entirely consistent with the utmost opposition to 
error, abstractly considered, or God has entirely misunder- 
stood the subject, and has committed a capital error, when 
he transferred the judgment-seat at which the penalty for 
sins of erroneous opinions is to be administered, instead of 
creating a human tribunal. 

Whoever permits himself, therefore, to feel an unkind 
thought, a fortiori — whoever does an unkind act towards a 
fellow-creature, whom he thereby adjudges to be guilty' of 
the sin of erroneous opinions, for and on account of these 
adjudged errors, is impiously placing himself upon the Al- 
mighty's judgment-seat, and daringly exercising his peculiar 
prerogatives. Every creature stands or falls with his own 
master. 

There is but one judgment-seat, and upon that Christ 
alone sits. But man is prone to transfer the allowable oppo- 
sition to error, that has the divine sanction, from the error, 
and to direct it against the unfortunate creature who enter- 
tains it, that has not the divine sanction. 

No Christian can carry his opposition to error to too 
great length, so far as he himself is concerned. He may 



244 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



avoid error of opinion and be accurate, just as much as he 
pleases, and to any extent he pleases. He cannot be 
too zealous in this extremely praiseworthy undertaking. So 
long as he does not violate the great law of love for God 
and man, he may manifest his opposition to errors of opin- 
ion by extreme accuracy himself, at any length and upon 
all occasions. But as he would not like to be disturbed 
in his own opinions, he has no warrant to disturb other 
people in theirs by unkind thoughts or actions, against 
their persons or peace of mind, further than may result from 
his adherence to and advocacy of true opinions. The law of 
Christ is, that A., holding a false opinion, shall love B., and 
B., holding correct opinions, shall love A. God takes care 
of his own truths, and himself punishes the sin of false 
opinions. Now a church association cannot certainly abro- 
gate the fundamental distinctions of right and wrong — the 
cardinal principles of Christianity. 

A church, an organized collection of Christians, has no 
greater warrant to violate God's law, than one has. God's 
law is the law of the general, as well as of individual con- 
science. Hence there is no authority but the law of God. 
That is final, arbitrary, and decisive. Whoever utters that, is 
to be obeyed, whatever may be his relative position other- 
wise. Upon the subject of toleration a lesson of importance 
may be learned, by reflecting that schismatics and heretics 
were the first ever to teach it. All denominations of Christians 
reputed to be orthodox have been, as Bossuet says, agreed, in 
the divinity of the doctrine that the sword of civil author- 
ity is the legitimate advocate of religion ; that punishment of 
some sort is a Christian necessity for the sin of erroneous the- 
ological opinions. The rankest heretics and schismatics were 
the first to be orthodox upon the now Christian doctrine of 
toleration, while the entire orthodox world were heretical. 
The voice of history upon this point is not to be disputed or 



FAITH. 



245 



denied. The Socinians, and the Anabaptists, and the Bou- 
rignonists were the earliest to teach the now prevalent doc- 
trine of Christian toleration. If error of theological opinion 
damns, then all orthodox Christians have been damned, and 
none have been saved but the heretical Socinians and Ana- 
baptists, and they have not been saved, because they were in 
gross error upon other points, so that it resolves itself into the 
conclusion that the entire Christian world has been damned. 
This is one of the consequences that follows from making 
faith a conviction of the mind. It is a singular circumstance 
that most of the bitterness of religious intolerance has been 
directed by Christians against Christians. Deists, and infi- 
dels, and men of the world with no religious pretensions, and 
idolaters, and atheists, are rather courted ; they are rather 
respected. This arises from the fact that proselytes come 
from this gentry. But let one Christian pretend to differ 
upon some cherished dogma, as for example upon the mys- 
tery of the Trinity, that forms the basis of a sect, and he 
becomes more objectionable infinitely than atheists and infi- 
dels. " For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, 
thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself ; but if ye bite and 
devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one 
of another." The true origin of the doctrine of religious tol- 
erance is seldom clearly elucidated and comprehended. 

Is religious tolerance a natural right ? None but infidels 
can maintain that it is. What have those to do who say 
that religious tolerance — by which we are to understand the 
right to worship the Supreme Being as individual conscience 
may dictate — is a natural right, in order to maintain their 
ground ? They have to dispense with the binding force of 
Revelation. 

The Bible has instituted a particular form of religious 
worship, and particular laws and regulations in relation to it. 
Now if we have a right deducible from nature to worship 



246 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



God as we see proper, we are certainly under no obligation to 
worship God according to the prescribed form. Indeed if we 
have a natural right to worship God, according to the dic- 
tate of individual conscience, then we need no further proof 
that the Gospel is a plain infringement of our natural rights, 
because it proceeds upon the supposition that it is a binding 
duty resting upon the human conscience to worship God 
according to the Christian system. It is utterly illogical to 
hold that we have a natural right to worship God as we 
think best, and that we are yet bound in conscience to wor- 
ship him in a particular manner. Certainly if the Gospel 
form be a divine form, has the divine sanction prescribing 
the manner in which God is to be worshipped, there cannot 
possibly exist the precisely opposite and contrary right of 
nature to worship him differently. 

It is a solecism to hold that nature gives men a right to do 
wrong. 

There cannot be a shadow of ground in logic or philoso- 
phy to say that man has a natural right of religious worship 
differently from the divine method, if it be indeed divine. 

It is also equally erroneous, unphilosophical, and absurd to 
say that religious tolerance is a legal or governmental right. 
This is a much more infidel doctrine than the other, because 
it invests a human legislation with a higher authority 
than the divine legislation. It proceeds upon the supposi- 
tion that human legislation can grant a right to disregard 
the plain enactments of the Bible. If the Bible form of 
worship is binding upon the human conscience, can a legal 
or governmental provision abrogate the divine obligation ? 
It plainly cannot. And besides, if mankind were alone 
indebted to the human legislation for the right to worship 
God according to individual conscience, it w^ould follow that 
the right would depart with the departure of the protect- 
ing law, and hence is no right at all. "We thus plainly per- 



FAITH. 



24:7 



ceive that religious toleration is neither a natural nor a legal 
or governmental right. Besides, all right or authority of 
government is derivative, is granted ; but no man can grant 
a spiritual or religious right, if he can grant natural rights. 
If religious toleration be a right, it is a Gospel right. Man- 
kind are indebted to Jesus Christ for the doctrine of religious 
toleration. Religious rights always mean religious duties. 
The origin of this right is to be traced to the fact that the 
Gospel was a general grant to the human family before any 
human instrumentality, as a church for example, was em- 
ployed in it. The Gospel, or the Christian mode of worship- 
ping God, was finished on the cross and then bestowed, and 
the delivery of a ministerial commission occurred many days 
thereafter, "and these human instruments, as trustees for man- 
kind, were expressly restricted to the precise limit of teaching 
only what Christ had directed them to teach. It is for 
this reason that they have no authority when they undertake 
to teach mankind to observe what Christ never directed them 
to teach. They are limited agents. Here is the origin of 
the right of toleration. The infallible Judge being absent, 
it follows that in case of a disagreement as to what Christ 
taught, being a question affecting a general right, it is a 
stand-off. Both parties submitting to the authority, and 
differing as to its interpretation, the settlement is necessarily 
to be deferred to the bar of Christ ; meantime, the parties 
being equal, the law of love controls their conduct, and the 
sanction or penalty hanging over them is their individual 
responsibility to God. This transfers the whole case to the 
bar of Christ. If multitudes be against A., that does not 
lessen the divine right of A., because his right antedated the 
right of churches. He is protected by the law of Christ, 
since to him he stands or fails. If multitudes be against A., 
it is a strong presumption against A.'s being in the right ; but 
it is never more than a presumption, however strong it may 



248 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



be, because it never ceases to be human interpretation, and 
no human being has a right to punish A. upon a mere pre- 
sumption, however strong, based upon fallible authority. 
Unkindness is punishment, even if it does not go further than 
a cold or averted look ; is as truly punishment, as fire and 
faggot. But the question again recurs, has A. a right to 
worship God differently from the prescribed form ? Certain- 
ly not. If he has not, where lies the penalty ? This is the 
turning point. It plainly lies in his individual responsibility 
to God. But the case is different in respect to actions where 
Christians agree in opinion. Now if the church, if multitudes, 
if legislative tribunals undertake to punish for contrarient 
opinions, they are undertaking to discharge divine functions. 
The party in the supposed error has violated no granted or 
delegated right of the church, no natural right of multitudes, 
no natural or constitutional right of government, for govern- 
ment is estopped from receiving a grant of spiritual power. 
He has simply exercised his divine right to worship God 
according to the prescribed divine mode, and he has made 
a supposed mistake. The mistake is his own and he alone 
has to answer for it. Answer to whom ? Why, " to his 
own master," who is alone infallible. We are to keep our- 
selves unspotted from the world, but that serves as no war- 
rant to keep the spotted world from us. In the fold of the 
spotted world are to be found the stray sheep of our divine 
Shepherd. Infallibility is a divine prerogative, essentially. ' 

This important chapter teaches the grave lesson to all 
Christian churches, to be extremely careful to receive him 
who comes with the honest will to perform the directions of 
Jesus Christ to the best of his knowledge and ability, whose 
orjinions are not in unison with the general belief, even if 
we have with us a living voice of infallibility to settle all 
questions. The law is, " Let not thy weak brother parish 
through thy knowledge, for whom Christ died." 



FAITH. 



249 



Two other lessons of yet graver import may be fairly de- 
duced from the doctrine taught by St. Paul in this chapter. 

1st, Even if we had with us a living voice of infallibility 
as the Roman church had in the instance of St. Paul, who 
had plenary authority to settle questions of doctrinal disa- 
greement, the declaration from infallible lips that the party 
applying for church membership is in manifest theological 
error, would be no just ground for the sentence of ex- 
clusion. 

2d, If the party making application for church privi- 
leges, with an acknowledged opinion different from that of 
the church, and manifestly erroneous, yet if he acts in op- 
position to his honest conviction he is " damned" and for the 
church to require a forced renunciation is to partake in the 
guilt. The law binding upon the church is, " destroy not 
him with thy meat for whom Christ died." It is to be pre- 
sumed that God has made man's intellectual organism cor- 
rectly, and does not desire him to think a thought in mani- 
fest repugnance to his honest appreciation of the laws of 
moral evidence, or violative of the laws of his intellectual 
being. Free agency does not consist in doing violence to 
the laws of moral evidence. 

Toleration is not different from the love of God. There is 
as much intolerance now in the churches of Jesus Christ as 
there was in the fifteenth century. The only difference is, 
that it is of less violent character. One lash for defective re- 
ligious knowledge, is as perfect intolerance as a thousand. 
Church exclusion or deficiency of Christian affection for de- 
fective religious knowledge, which is but another form of 
expression to imply false doctrines, is as perfect intolerance as 
the reno vned massacre of St. Bartholomew. It is only a less 
violent and sanguinary manifestation of the principle. The 
principle that underlies those manifestations is the same. 
Whoever withholds a full outlay of Christian affection upon 
11* 



250 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



account of defective religious knowledge, which implies false 
doctrines, is as completely guilty of the sin of intolerance as 
the murderers of Servetus, or of Ignatius, or of Christ him- 
self. It only differs in degree of wickedness. The only al- 
lowable law of action, the only sanctified motive of conduct 
for the Christian is good, or God. When God reigns, love 
reigns ; and when love reigns there can be no intolerance. 
Love worketh no ill to its neighbor, but contrariwise. 

That any man has a right to entertain an erroneous re- 
ligious opinion is a mere absurdity. ISo one has a right to 
do a wrong. Right and wrong are opposite terms. It is no 
doctrine of ours, that a man has a right to hold an erroneous 
opinion, either religious or philosophical. Such a right can- 
not exist, because it involves a solecism. Whoever entertains 
an erroneous opinion, is doing a wrong thing. Of that there 
can be no question. But the principle involved in the ques- 
tion of tolerance is, to whom is he amenable ? Who has the 
right to pronounce a sentence of any kind upon him ? St. 
Paul has fully answered this question : " To his own master 
he standeth or falleth." Whoever acts towards those who 
differ from them in points of religious knowledge, with a less 
kind motive than governs his conduct with regard to those 
that concur with him in opinion, commits a sin against God, 
in the precise ratio of the difference. This difference is intoler- 
ance, because it is a departure from the law of love, that gov- 
erns his conduct towards those that agree with him. The 
rule of Christ is, to love other men as we love ourselves. 
This is the principle of Christian tolerance. Every man who 
watches his own mind, finds his opinions undergoing a change 
with every additional item of information he obtains. His 
opinions of one year are not his opinions of the next, in any 
unvarying uniformity. New knowledge looks to a change of 
opinion, and makes a change of opinion inevitable. There- 
fore, error of opinion is defective knowledge. Truth is 



FAITH. 



251 



steady, because it conies from God. Notwithstanding we find 
our opinions undergoing a change with every enlargement of 
the sphere and sum of knowledge, we do not adjudge our- 
selves to be more criminal upon that account, nor does it 
diminish our self-affection, but on the contrary increases both. 
We must regulate our affection for others by the same stand- 
ard we employ with regard to ourselves. The history of 
Arius and Athanasius proves that Arius was the better 
Christian, if Athanasius was the better theologian. Mosheim 
says of Socinus, that his enemies are obliged to acknowledge 
in him " the lustre of a virtuous life." A belief in the eternal 
sonship of Christ is not the condition of salvation, although 
a cardinal doctrine of the Christian system. The difference 
between homooitsios and homoiousios is not discussed by the 
Saviour, nor by any of the Gospel writers. Human nature 
much prefers to administer the " physic of controversy for the 
diet of holy living." 

Had the solemn injunctions of this inspired and holy apos- 
tle been observed, the fallen archangel would never have suc- 
ceeded in' betraying the professed followers of Christ, the 
loving Lord, into the lamentable folly of kindling the fires of 
intolerant zeal, and the saddest page of the book of history 
had never been written. In the cases coming before the Ro- 
man church, the error was upon the side of him who 
claimed church fellowship ; not only was he in error upon 
this most important and exciting question, whose roots ran 
to the very head and source of Christ's messiahship, but he 
was manifestly, nay, infallibly in error. No stronger case can 
be put of the absence of the unity of religious creed, and de- 
clared to be in error by infallible lips, and yet the golden 
words are, " Receive him ; to his own master he standeth or 
falleth." I, an apostle who knows that he is in error, who 
knows the dangerous nature and consequences of the error, 
with regard to which disputants elsewhere are warm and zeal- 



252 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



ous, heated and enthusiastic, direct you Roman Christians to do 
what ? Bring him up, and measure his theological knowledge 
by a set formula of compromised doctrines, and test his claim 
to the privilege of Christian association by a recondite com- 
pendium of concentrated orthodoxy ? Oh, no ; never, never ! 

Were we not acquainted with the saddest of all histories, 
the melancholy tale of Christian intolerance, happily now 
"viewed through the postern of time long elapsed," as re- 
spects its most repulsive features, and were for the first time 
informed — knowing what we know of the mild doctrines of 
Christ — that Satan had been ingenious enough to provoke 
one disciple to burn another disciple to death by the slow 
torture of the consuming faggot, we should at once exclaim, 
with hot and unabated breath, it was a railing accusation 
against the devil. 

Our Saviour set the example of tolerance in the case of the 
heretical Thomas, in stern opposition to the practice of his 
misguided followers. 

The disciples of Christ are the followers of one whose dis- 
tinguishing trait of character was forbearance of sinners, and 
tolerance of uneducated, ignorant men ; who died for such ; 
who bore the contradiction of men of the loosest religious 
principles without any other return than the gushing tender- 
ness of love ; who mingled with publicans and courtesans, 
and held daily intercourse with the master dissembler of the 
world's long annals, whose infamy, festering near the very side 
of the uncontaminated Jesus, will historically follow the 
stream of time, undimmed in its colors, and as imperishable 
as time itself, to serve as a perpetual memento of the toler- 
ance of the one and the ingratitude of the other, and fated 
still to darken every language with the word for treachery 
and ingratitude. 

It is not within the power of the human imagination to 
conceive a tithe of the evil and sin, waste and desolation, ruin, 



FAITH. 



253 



dishonor, and misery that have been produced in the garden 
of the Lord by the error of regarding faith as having any 
connection with accuracy of religious comprehension, and as 
a conviction of the mind susceptible of being reduced into a 
compendium. There they have been truly the snakey-haired 
dragons of discord, and plague-spots introduced by would-be 
illuminati. They have been the means of transforming the 
Scriptures from the dews of righteousness, peace, and joy, 
showered upon a band of equal brethren, into a lava of gall 
and bitterness. When a look is cast upon the past history of 
creeds as the test of Christianity, it is enough to make the 
spirits of the blessed mourn in heaven. Oh, that some 
recording angel would drop a tear over their melancholy his- 
tory, and blot it out forever ! 

" Enough — no foreign foe could quell 
Thy soul, till from itself it fell- 
Strange, that where all is peace beside, 
There passion riots in her pride, 
And hate and discord wildly reign, 
And darken o'er the fair domain." 

If religion were the result of the process of investigation, 
the most pious people would be the best logicians, and vice 
versa: Religion would be a tissue of logical sequences — 
Faith would be a mental deduction — Piety would be confi- 
dence in a vision — Sanctification would be the perfection of a 
quod erat demonstrandum — Logic would supplant love ; a 
syllogism would make Christians happy ; a death-bed would 
be a scene of learned disquisition of schoolmen in gowns, and 
the occasion for the softest and most persuasive display of th e 
cabalistic terms of theological logic, and the happy soul would 
ascend to heaven, enchanted upon the mystified cloud of a 
logical syllogism. Degrees in Christianity would be confer- 
red by a learned college of religious logicians ; and the best 
reasoners would take the highest decrees, and when the Bible 
said, " Son, give me thy heart," it would be translated, Son, go 



254 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



through with the syllogism ; and thus Christianity would be 
converted into a logical science and a creed of points, and 
would be unattended by any supernatural agency, and be of 
no practical utility to mankind. 

As the perceptions of the mind precede the act of the will, 
as the light of a candle will precede the steps of the night- 
walker, so the science of moral evidence is made use of by 
man (and we must not distinguish between man and the will 
of man), in order that he may choose his course of action. 
Without light there can be no choice — or rather, no rational 
choosing. The intellect is the noblest endowment of the will. 
To the mind is the will indebted for the observance of all the 
moral evidence bearing upon the Christian system. Without 
mind, the will could not rationally choose either good or evil, 
because the distinctions would cease to exist. To the mind is 
the will indebted for the apprehension of the system of divinity. 
The mind pictures truths for the will. The intellect teaches us 
that the lofty system of Christianity could not have been the 
invention of fools ; that nothing so holy could have originated 
with impostors ; that the message is such as is proper to pro- 
ceed from such a supposed messenger ; that it is peculiarly 
adapted to the nature of man to which it is applied ; that it 
is improbable, except upon the supposition of its truth, that 
its Author and principal advocates would manifest the sincer- 
ity of their convictions by the most cruel and ignominious 
deaths, to sustain what could bring them no earthly advan- 
tage whatever ; that the circumstantial nature of their testi- 
mony exposed it to refutation, and that it has never been 
refuted ; that the simplicity of the recital, and the absence of 
all trace of collusion, and of every vituperation against ene- 
mies and murderers of its Author, prepares the way for the 
admission of its divine origin ; that its success, when in all 
human probability it ought to have failed, indicates a higher 
agency than man. The mind of man will inform man, not 



FAITH. 



255 



that the mind will inform mind, but will show man, or the 
will, that it is a thing out of the range of the ordinary course 
of natural laws, for illiterate cheats to surpass learned honesty 
in unfolding the sublimest lessons of morality, and in defining 
the purest laws of virtue : or for the feigned and fraudulent 
writings of simple-minded Galilean peasants, without -the 
refinements of education, and in a dark age, to excel the learn- 
ed treatises of Greece and Rome ; and though subjected to 
the fiery ordeal of the fiercest criticism of the finest intellects 
of the world, is now enriching the language of the most cul- 
tivated nations with the household words, and furnishing it 
with its finest images, and filling the nations with the dearest 
hopes of life in time and eternity, while the cobwebs of time 
and the venerable dust of ages are reposing in quiet slumbers 
upon the neglected works of Judea, Greece, and Rome. This 
is the province of the mind, and hence the most confirmed 
infidels are as capable of arraying this species of moral evi- 
dence as the mildest mannered Christian in the land. In the 
school of moral evidence, conducing to the postulates that the 
Scriptures are of divine authority — that Christ was a being 
of divine attributes, David Hume or Tom Paine, if possessed 
of equal willingness, would take rank ahead of any Christian 
philosopher of lesser intellectual calibre, however the latter 
may surpass the former in the submission of the will to the 
written law of Jesus Christ. The logical inferences of the 
mind, or the results of the deliberating faculties, have no merit 
in them, because they are involuntary, and are inoperative 
until chosen. They derive their virtue wholly from the fact 
of their truth. The moral agent in the possession of this intel- 
lectual mechanism by which a reason, a truth, has been per- 
ceived, is entitled to no credit but the credit of industry. The 
understanding perceives, understood in the sense of portraying, 
that in the science of numbers, two and two make four. Man 
recognizes this postulate, because it is a true one. He perceives 



256 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



the quadrature of the hyperbola, or the theory of gravitation, 
or the divine origin of the Christian Scriptures, simply upon 
the strength of evidence. If a proposition is untrue, the 
strongest reasons are always against it. We hence judge a 
proposition to be true, that has the strongest reasons in its 
favor, — the reverse of the proposition is equally true. Truth 
has always the strongest reasons in its favor. When we say 
that the strongest reasons are against a certain proposition, 
this is but another form of words to say that it is untrue ; 
and if the strongest reasons were against the postulate of the 
divine origin of the Gospel, it would then certainly be thereby 
proven to be a cheat. Can man perceive stronger rea- 
sons in favor of a false proposition than against it ? Un- 
questionably, under certain circumstances. This often hap- 
pens from defective knowledge. This arises from the fact, 
that there are true and fallacious reasons. Suppose, then, 
that the mind of a certain man portrays the strongest reasons 
bearing upon the question of the divine authority of the Gos- 
pel to be against it. This is a possible case, and a very 
common case. Is not the man blameless ? The question is 
not relevant to the proposition. The question is, is the man 
blameless ? The question ought to be, is the mind blameless ? 
Now it may happen that the mind may be blameless, and 
the man a sinner. We must remember that the man is will, 
having mind. The will may be so acted upon, and may so 
act, as to keep the mind in the dark. In this case where is 
the blame ? In the mind ? Not at all, but upon man. Reli- 
gion is unlike any other proposition, it is not addressed to 
the mind, but to the will. If man blinds his mind, he is as 
much to blame as if he refused to follow the true light when 
shown to him. You cannot blame the mind of man without 
at the same time blaming God. God is its author and its 
mechanical contriver ; and it is an involuntary principle con- 
trolled by the laws of truth. This question comes up again 



FAITH. 



257 



under the head of the will. The divine author of the Chris- 
tian system of salvation has delivered it to rational beings 
upon what he judged to be sufficient moral evidence, as we 
may judge from the fact, that he declared that men who 
would not believe upon the given evidence, would not believe 
though one rose from the dead. 

We may take it for granted, that the mind of man can 
always receive sufficient knowledge, with respect to the divin- 
ity of the system of Christ, to secure salvation, if the will 
comes up to the knowledge. However minute or imperfect 
the knowledge may be, all that is required is, that the will 
shall submit to that extent — no more. 

This is plainly illustrated in the cases of the thief and St. 
Paul. The knowledge that the thief possessed of the theo- 
retical character of the Christian system must have been ex- 
tremely imperfect and limited. It is quite reasonable to sup- 
pose that he had never heard of Christ until he saw him at 
the crucifixion, and he must have sprung from the very lowest 
and most ignorant ranks of society. Yet, with all these dis- 
advantages of deficient knowledge, he received salvation. 

St. Paul, with every advantage of mental culture, received 
no more. It is hardly to be doubted, that had the thief been 
questioned with regard to those theoretical points that now 
divide and distract Christians, and his answers committed to 
writing, there is probably not now upon earth a church or- 
ganization that would consider him a fit subject of church 
association. What was St. Paul's condition when he was 
arrested by the influences of the Gospel ? Whose writings 
had he read ? Whose epistles had he examined ? Whose 
commentaries had he looked into ? There had not been one 
line of the system committed to paper. These observations 
are equally applicable to all the early converts to Christianity. 
When St. Paul was first arrested by Gospel influences, what 
is divinely recorded for our instruction to have been his ex- 



258 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY . 



clamation? What wilt thou have me to do? Not what 
theological doctrines it was necessary for him to adopt. 

There are very many men in Christian lands who are con- 
firmed infidels. Their minds are convinced that the Chris- 
tian system is a fable. They do not credit the divinity of the 
Christian Scriptures. They think that every reason is in stern 
opposition to its truth. These men are doubtless honest and 
sincere. This is an acquired state. It is a most remarkable 
circumstance connected with all such cases, that they do not 
look upon the Christian system with the same indifferent eyes 
that they regard other false religious systems. They all hate 
the Christian system. This is the key that lets us into the 
secret of their condition. This feeling is a peculiar and an 
unnatural feeling. There is no cause why they should hate 
this false system, as they believe it to be, that does not apply 
with greater force against much more pernicious religious 
heresies, as, for example, that of the howling dervishes, and 
many others of a like character. The feeling in the bosom 
of a confirmed infidel, respecting the system of Jesus Christ, 
is widely dissimilar from that felt for other false creeds. 
Why is this ? It is because infidelity is chosen damnation. 

That there are infidels who do not credit the divinity of the 
Christian system — who sincerely believe it to be a most prepos- 
terous cheat, having no valid reasons in its favor, is not to be de- 
nied. In this conviction they are honest. We do not pretend 
to deny that Hume was a fair, and yet remarkable, illustration 
of the class. Now, here are a class of men of various grades 
of information, who do not credit the divinity of the Chris- 
tian system, and who are honest and sincere in this conviction. 
Now the question arises, can God damn such people to eter- 
nal woe ? We reply, that the question has no relevancy to 
the state of facts. If it has any application, we answer that 
he cannot. God is a being of infinite love, and can damn 
nobody. But ean he save them ? He cannot ; because infi- 



FAITH. 



259 



delity is chosen damnation. They have made choice of this 
confirmed state. This state is the result of a progressive ad- 
vance from the earliest beginnings. Damnation is not the 
act of God, but the choice of the creature. God damns no- 
body. He only fixes the penalty of probation in the chosen 
damnation. When a sinner is transferred to another state, 
God only permits his choice of evil to be a permanent state. 
His damnation was selected here. Hume damned himself 
when he chose infidelity to the close of probation. God only 
confirmed his choice in a progressive but an unchangeable 
state. Hume will progress in the spiritual state, but it will 
be the growth of his chosen damnation. 

When Hume awakened in eternity, and found his choice 
of damnation confirmed, he would reply, that he did not 
honestly and sincerely believe in the divinity of the Gospel. 
The reply would be, " You did not always believe so." There 
is a tide in the affairs of religion as well as in those of the 
world. No infidel can answer that he has always disbe- 
lieved. That there was a time in the life of Hume, as well as 
in that of every other infidel, when they were powerfully op- 
erated upon by the blessed influences of the Gospel, is just as 
certainly true as that its sounds ever reached their ears. All 
Christians know this, and all infidels know it, and would ac- 
knowledge it, if they were honest. The spirit of God accom- 
panies the Gospel, and when a sinner hears it for the first 
time, he necessarily experiences its most mysterious influence. 
This is not a peculiarity connected with youth, as is generally 
thought, but is the ever-faithful attendant upon first and early 
acquaintance with the Gospel, happen when it may. Then 
it is that the sinner begins the career of infidelity. Then it 
is that the choice of evil is made. Then it is that he begins 
the choice of his own damnation. Then it is that he vacil- 
lates, wavers, is cast to and fro like a wave of the sea. But 
the Christian system requires sacrifices. It demands the per- 



260 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

formance of stern duties, and the choice of God to the pleas- 
ure of the alluring world. The trial is then the most inter- 
esting for time and eternity. 

If the sinner chooses good, and continues to choose good, 
manifested in obedience to the Redeemer, he approaches 
towards God and salvation. If he chooses evil, and continues 
to choose evil, manifested in evil actions, he approaches ruin 
and damnation. Just as he refuses to submit to God's spir- 
itual application does God recede from him, and does the evil 
spirit supply the place and gain the ascendency. He now 
begins to look for reasons to guard himself against the lash- 
ings of conscience and fearful forebodings. Confirmed infi- 
delity is not a work of difficult accomplishment ; not more so 
than success in the opposite career, although it is beset with 
many distressing cares and anxious apprehensions for the 
future. But it comes at last, after persevering effort and un- 
varying choice of the world and disregard of the Gospel. A 
spirit damned in this world is just like a spirit damned in the 
other, aside from the material habitation. He is under the 
control of the love of evil, and his operative powers are under 
the dominion of the devil. The two are in union ; union and 
communion characterize their intercourse ; the voice of the 
infidel becomes the voice of the devil. The will of the infi- 
del is lost in the sway of the will of the devil. This accounts 
for the hate every infidel feels for the Gospel. The devil does 
not hate the howling dervishes, neither does the confirmed 
infidel. The devil hates no false system of religion, neither 
does the infidel. Their congenial hate is peculiar to Christ 
Jesus' system. 

The death-bed of David Hume was one of the most adroit 
and ingenious arguments against the Gospel upon record. 
The greatest support of the Gospel is the tranquil death of 
the Christian. Now, if an infidel can die tranquilly, he there- 
by undermines this pillar of the Gospel. Every Christian 



FAITH. 



261 



knows that the death of Hume was a carefully studied and 
well-sustained effort of duplicity. And many others besides 
Christians know it. He did not overdo his part. There is 
something unnatural about it, it is true, to the careful observer ; 
but he had the sagacity to conceal the art. He well under- 
stood the axiom, " Ars celare artem." He was a finished 
scholar and logician. Had there been no Gospel, there 
would have been no need of fine acting, and there would have 
been wanting the careful management of his operative pow- 
ers. He would have acted naturally. Men do not like to 
manage, to enact a studied part, to wear the mask into the 
very jaws of death ; it is an unnatural effort. Death often 
sobers them into honesty, in spite of themselves. The terror 
of death often baffles the devil's adroitness. Hume knew that 
the expression of hate was confession, because it betrayed its 
parentage. He knew that the expression of apprehension 
was confession ; he was too matured an adept to confess. 
His allusion to the boat of Charon was a master-stroke of his 
acting. His merriment was rather overdone for the occasion, 
but it took. He succeeded as few succeed. He succeeded 
where Voltaire failed — where the large majority of infidels 
fail. He died gloriously ; he died the triumphant death of 
the infidel to the last. He made sure of his choice. He did 
not spoil the work of a lifetime by any transient moment of 
honesty at its close. He died game. He has had his reward 
in the unanimous huzzas of his party, and doubtless in the 
greetings of his chieftain. 

What are the differences between the cases of flume and 
Wesley ? 

Hume died an infidel ; he was under the dominion of sin. 
His will was lost in the will of Satan, and as his agent, made 
the most carefully prepared and most successful inroad upon 
the Christian system within the knowledge of man. 

Wesley was a Christian ; he was under the dominion of love ; 



262 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

his will was lost in the will of God, and as his agent, made a 
most successful argument in favor of the divine origin of 
the Gospel, in a happy, consistent, tranquil, rational death. 
The one chose damnation, and the other salvation. Proba- 
tion, at death, closed with them both. The only agency God 
had in the damnation or salvation of either, was in granting 
a probation under a probationary system. Unless he had 
provided for the possibility of Hume's choosing damnation, 
he could not possibly have provided for Wesley's choosing 
salvation, because choice requires an alternative. He had 
to permit Hume to choose damnation freely, in order to re- 
ceive from Wesley the tender of a free voluntary love and 
adoration. Unless Hume's damnation had been fully pos- 
sible and fully voluntary, Wesley's salvation would have been 
purely necessary and mechanical. Life is the period of pro- 
bation, and Hume might have reversed his choice at any mo- 
ment preceding death ; but it was one of those possibles that 
barely reaches beyond the range of the impossible. 

This philosophy enables us to account for the seemingly 
otherwise unaccountable hatred wicked men have to holiness 
and the Gospel. Had it not been for this feeling, the death 
of Christ could never have occurred. Had it not been for 
this feeling, there never would have been a pro martyr. Had 
it not been for this feeling, we should never have had the 
massacre of St. Bartholomew. 

That the feelings have an influence with regard to the 
mind, cannot be doubted. Hence, you see men indisposed to 
submit afty important temporal interest to the arbitration of 
men who hate them. They are afraid of the influence of the 
hate. It is not the mind they dread, but an influence behind 
the mind. Take away this oblique influence, and the appre- 
hension ceases. A man may be willing to leave a matter to 
another on one day, that he would not be willing to leave to 
him on the succeeding day, when there had occurred no alter- 



FAITH. 



263 



ation in the capacity of the mind, but in the personal relations 
of the affections. Man has not much confidence in man. 
He has every confidence in the mind ; as, for example, A. is 
unwilling to submit to the arbitration of B. to-day : they are 
bitter enemies. They make friends by mutual explanations, 
and in process of time become bosom friends. Now A. is 
willing to submit to his judgment. Whence the difference ? 
It results from the native dishonesty of the will, as distinct 
from the uniform deductions of the understanding. 

Infidels of the school of deists should not attribute their evil 
lives and evil dispositions to their infidelity with respect to 
the Gospel, for they would be guilty of unphilosophical in- 
consistency. Infidelity, with resjDect of the system of Christ, 
cannot be a motive of action if there be but one God, who is 
the causing principle of all things. Deists do not credit the 
existence of two first causes. Man is a derived cause of 
action, acting from derived causes. He is a created being, or 
a created cause, producing effects or actions in virtue of an im- 
parted energy or motive — of course imparted by the one first 
cause. It is the common philosophy of deists, that men are 
governed by motive ; that motive is the cause of effects or 
actions performed by man. ISTow, the absence of a conviction 
cannot be a cause. It is itself an effect. A reason cannot be 
a cause. Infidelity with respect to the Gospel, is itself an 
effect. It cannot be a cause, or motive, and an effect at the 
same time. If it is an effect, it must have a cause. The 
want of belief in the Christian religion is not the cause of sin- 
ful lives, unless it be of the nature of the first cause. It is an 
abstraction. Will deists afi&rm that the want of belief in any 
given proposition— want of belief in the truth of the Gospel 
system of salvation, for example — is of the nature of the first 
cause ? If so, then the first cause must be a nonentity, for 
want of belief is a nonentity : want of belief is absence of 
conviction. 



264 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



Will they affirm that want of belief is a cause distinct from 
the nature of God ? If so, they thereby affirm the existence 
of two independent causes or motives — a much more prepos- 
terous system than the Christian system. They then cease 
to be deists, and become polytheists. 

If they do not obey the Gospel, it must necessarily, if they 
are at all consistent in their doctrine of one first and only cause, 
be the result of something else than a want of belief in it. 
Want of belief may be called a reason, but it cannot be a 
cause or motive unless it partake of the nature, or spring from 
the vital energy of the only and first motive or cause of actions. 
Hence they are inconsistent. 

If the system of the Christian religion be of God, then it 
has the strongest reasons in its favor. If a proposition be 
true, the discovery of the strongest reasons in contrast with 
the opposite proposition can be as readily seen by one mind 
as another — by the infidel as well as the Christian. A wil- 
lingness to act upon the proposition is what distinguishes a 
Christian from an infidel. In the elucidation of this point, 
much depends upon understanding what is meant by belief. 
It is absurd to say that the mind believes. Man believes, 
not mind. This question is discussed under the head of the 
will. 

When the strongest reasons are presented to the mind, 
and man refuses to believe (a thing that occurs in the 
history of every man's ordinary life), his unbelief does not 
arise from any inability to perceive the strongest reasons, but 
because he does not choose to yield concurrence. It is in 
the power of all men to yield concurrence to a proposition 
sustained by the strongest evidence, if willing. Infidelity 
is only justifiable upon the ground of the falsity of any prop- 
osition. All Christians firmly, clearly, and unhesitatingly 
declare and maintain, some of them at great and ruinous 
personal cost, that the moral evidence proving the divine 



FAITH. 



265 



origin of the Christian religion is amply, overwhelmingly 
sufficient for the purposes of conviction. How is this to be 
explained ? This class is now a large and intelligent class. 
The Christian is not a moi-e accurate reasoner than the infi- 
del. There are, indeed, but few Humes among them, or 
among the other class. The Christian is not a more accu- 
rate reasoner after he becomes a Christian than before. It is 
to be borne in mind that the Christian world are affirmative 
witnesses. They assert the thing to be true from their own 
knowledge. The infidel world are negative witnesses. They 
affirm the thing to be untrue upon philosophic reasoning. 
How very much better the testimony of one honest man is, 
who asserts a thing to be true from his own personal knowl- 
edge, than the negative testimony of the entire world besides, 
all men perceive and admit. Suppose A., living in England, 
has lost his child, and B., living in America, and perfectly 
competent as respects intelligence and honesty in other mat- 
ters, tells A. that he saw his child in America, is his testimony 
not stronger than all the men in England who declare that 
they did not see him? Here are a large class of men 
asserting a thing to be true from their own knowledge, 
who in other regards are of admitted honesty and intelli- 
gence. It cannot be that they are deluded, because delusion 
upon a particular subject cannot be a general infirmity. An 
infirmity of the mind affecting a general class, must be an 
infirmity affecting the entire mind equally, of the entire 
class, and all Christians would be equally weak upon all 
other subjects. It would indicate a general paralysis of the 
mind. This is not the case with Christians, because they 
are very astute on all other subjects. The opposing world 
have to do one of two things. They have either to admit 
that the moral evidence sustaining the divine origin of the 
Scriptures is sufficient, and that their unbelief is their unwil- 
lingness, or that all Christians are corrupt men, or as a class 

12 



266 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



are weak men generally. There is no other alternative. If 
the infidel world are complaisant enough to admit that 
Christians as a class have no impaired minds, at the same 
time that they affirm what is itself true, that infidels are as 
accurate reasoners as Christians, then it follows beyond ques- 
tion that the different relation they sustain to the Gospel is 
not to be traced to the mind, but to the will. The infidel 
does not relish the Christian religion, and the Christian does. 
That's the secret. 

The mind's perception of the beauty of virtue, or of any 
other truth, is involuntary. It can no more refuse to per- 
ceive it than the eye can refuse to see a tree when thrown 
upon it. Man may refuse to look at a thing with his mind, 
just as he may refuse to look at a tree with his eyes. Man 
does not perceive involuntarily, because man is something 
more than, and is distinct from, mind. So man does not 
see involuntarily, because man is something more than eyes. 
Place before the mind the proof that a semicircle is half a 
circle, and it can no more refuse to perceive it than the eyes 
can refuse to see the ocean, or the ear to hear its roar. 

Lord Brougham says, " no man is accountable for the opin- 
ion he may form, the conclusion at which he may arrive, pro- 
vided he has taken the due pains to inform his mind and fix 
his judgment ; but for the conduct of the understanding he 
certainly is responsible. He does more than err if he negli- 
gently proceed in the inquiry ; he does more than err if - he 
allows any motive to sway his mind save the constant and 
single desire of finding the truth ; he does more than err if he 
listen rather to ridicule than reason, unless it be that ridicule 
which springs from the contemplation of gross and manifest 
absurdity, and w r hat is in truth ribaldry and not argument." 

The extreme absurdity of this extract is apparent upon the 
face of it. Opinions are chosen reasons. Man chooses, not 
the understanding. Is it not grossly inconsistent to say that 



FAITH. 



267 



a man is not responsible for his opinion, if he has taken the 
due pains to inform his mind, but that he is responsible for 
the conduct of the understanding ? Is it not absurd to say 
that a man can inform his understanding ? Is it not a com- 
plete reversal of the process of education ? Does not- the 
understanding endow the man ? Where does the man 
obtain his evidence, whence he acquires knowledge ? Cer- 
tainly through the material organs. Where or how does he 
see objects ? In or with his eyes. Where does he hear 
sounds ? In his ears. Is man responsible for the conduct of 
his eyes and ears ? The eyes and ears are responsible for them- 
selves, or rather God is responsible for them, and for the mind ; 
and when mind is destroyed, the blame, if blame there be, is 
always laid upon God. But you never hear men blaming 
God for an infirm will with respect to religion. The defect- 
ive organization of man's medium of thought is, beyond all 
question, the immediate work of God. Man is never respon- 
sible for the conduct of the understanding, because the mind 
is not capable of conduct : he is only responsible for his own 
conduct. Conduct implies action, and who ever heard of the 
intellect acting ? , That is not its province. Man acts. Will 
acts. Nothing else acts. It is the work of infidelity to 
shift the responsibility from the will to the mind ; because, 
when this is done, the blame of unbelief is thrown upon 
God, and man thereby hopes to escape. 

We again inquire, why is the divinity of the Scriptures 
not universally credited ? The Christian world asserts that 
the moral evidence sustaining it is amply sufficient. Then 
it will not do for the Christian world to affirm that religion 
consists in the assent of the mind. If the evidence is ample 
and the man be willing, the mind must behold this evidence 
involuntarily. It is then the willingness of the man that 
must enter into the question of faith. If faith means the 
voluntary belief of man, and the perception of truth by the 



268 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



mind be involuntary, the perception of the mind cannot be 
an act of belief. We hold that if the proof sustaining the 
divine origin of the Christian religion were brought to bear 
upon the reasoner as a mere physical or historical truth, 
there would not be a dissentient voice among men. And 
why ? Because there would be no inveterate hostility to it 
in the will of man. Man hates the truth in proportion to 
his wickedness. And hence it is that it is much more diffi- 
cult to convert grown men than young men, and men ordi- 
narily than women. Their love of evil grows with their 
growth. It is the wickedness in the estrangement of the 
will that interposes the difficulty. This is the reason why 
infidels are often changed by some sudden stroke of alarm. 
In health they feel safe. Why is an infidel generally a 
coward upon his death-bed ? He is not so in health. Fear 
is a sense of insecurity. In health he no more fears God 
than he does the gentlest zephyr. With the fact before our 
eyes, that with reasoning faculties certainly unimproved by 
alarm, and with moral evidence utterly incapable of being in 
the remotest degree increased, frequent admissions of con- 
firmed infidels occur in the immediate prospect of death, of 
the sufficiency of the proof of the divine origin of the Chris- 
tian system, can we otherwise conclude than that the mental 
assent was in reality of older date than the spasmodic move- 
ment of honesty into which he was lashed by guilty terrors ? 
Fear is itself confession. In the case of the conversion of an 
educated infidel at the close of life, and under the impulse of 
alarm, upon which occasion the moral evidence of religion 
cannot have been increased, nor his reasoning faculties invig- 
orated, we are thence forced to conclude, in such an instance, 
that his mental perceptions with regard to the force of this 
testimony, were of older date than the moment of alarmed 
honesty, and that therefore the conversion should also have 
occurred at an anterior date, if the assent of the mind were 



FAITH. 



269 



the condition of the change. Infidels often believe and 
tremble. Conversion is the result of the activity of the will 
under the operation of the laws of Jesus Christ's salvation 
dispensation. It is not trembling that should follow belief, 
if belief be the condition of conversion, but conversion 
rather. 

It is important to observe, that belief has two very opposite 
or contrarient significations. It means a deduction of the 
mind, and also the confidence of the will. 

An action is the expression of the belief of the will. The 
perception of truth by means of the understanding, and the 
recognition of that truth, simply as truth, is what we are to 
understand by the belief of devils and wicked men. This be- 
lief is calculated to make them tremble. 

We need not be told that devils, and wicked men, and 
Christians, accompany each other as far as either may travel 
on this route — the good man having, in this regard, no ad- 
vantage over the wicked man. A distinction between them 
only arises when one of them exercises the belief of the will, 
or the confidence of the will, in the existence of the truth in 
an answerable action or conduct, since it is by conduct alone 
and exclusively, that the will is empowered to exhibit or de- 
clare its trust. 

The trust of the mind may be declared in many acts that 
do not exhibit the trust of the will. For example, an edu- 
cated man may furnish us with a very able and very profound 
work upon the subject of the system of the Christian religion. 
His treatise may be more accurate than any that could be 
furnished by any Christian of the age in which he lives. He 
may thus be a profound theologian. This all indicates the 
belief of the mind. There are, it is true, some actions per- 
formed in the discovery and elucidation of these truths ; but 
in none of them is the scriptural trust or belief of the will indi- 
cated. The will only indicates this belief or trust when it per- 



270 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



forms an action from the motive that is recognized as the reli- 
gious motive. Remembering that all acts are the acts of God 
(as we expect to show more fully and conclusively in the next 
chapter), the motive that leads to them is the only quality that 
connects itself with religion in the eye of the supreme Law- 
giver. Hence no action is, or can be, religious, or a religiously 
praiseworthy action, that does not flow from the motive of trust 
or belief of the will. 

The will, in order to exercise faith or religious belief, is un- 
der a necessity to declare its trust in the divine truths of the 
Scripture by performing the prescribed actions. This trust, 
or reliance, or confidence, or belief (meaning by them the 
faith of the will, in contradistinction from the faith of the un- 
derstanding), is the condition of salvation, since it is the exhi- 
bition of the only voluntary principle in man — the only prin- 
ciple that can produce an action. The will has confidence 
in a proposition or a truth only, when it produces an action 
properly declaring that confidence. 

This is true in natural philosophy as well as in religion. 

If A. informs B. that an alkali and a salt will produce an 
effervescence, and B. credits it upon the strength of moral evi- 
dence, is fully convinced from argument and evidence that 
the proposition is undeniably true, this state of B.'s under- 
standing we would denominate the trust or belief of the mind. 
Now, so far, there is no merit in this state of B., because he 
has not indicated his own trust, or the belief of the will, the 
voluntary principle in him, by the only thing that can indi- 
cate or declare his belief — the 'proper actions. 

He has credited the truth of the proposition, not volunta- 
rily, but simply because his understanding has been con- 
vinced. If he had voluntarily attempted to credit the truth 
of the proposition, without being convinced by evidence, he 
would have committed a gross act of fraud and duplicity. 
The very merit in the trust of the mind is, that it is involun- 



FAITH. 



271 



tary. If it spring from choice, it is duplicity. If B. believes 
a truth because he chooses to believe it, aside from evidence, 
he is a cheat. So, if a man credits the truth of the Scrip- 
tures because he chooses to credit them, aside from evidence, 
he is a hypocrite. 

But no man is a hypocrite who performs an act of trust of 
the will, since the intent of the act is the measure of the merit 
of it. The intent must be to obey the Mediator, with the 
view to obtain the grace of God. The will being a voluntary 
principle, it must certainly choose. How can it choose with- 
out an action ? It is the action that speaks the voice of the 
will. It is voiceless without an action. A choice without an 
action is a state of the understanding. 

This brings us to remark, that the trust of the will is a 
causing principle, in contradistinction from the belief of the 
understanding. The will trusts or believes from desire. It 
is the desire of the will that causes the will to declare its 
trust in an action. Thus are we furnished with an adequate 
motive or cause of religious actions. Man, or the will, is the 
creature of motive ; it cannot act without a motive, and the 
motive that enables it to act is the love of good or evil. To 
love a thin of is to desire it. The will desires God — this is the 
motive. Now the will, under the government of this motive, 
is thereby enabled to perform a prescribed action, because a 
prescribed action is the way to procure God, or to gratify the 
desire of the will. 

The mind may be said to be either positive or negative. 
When it is positive, it is in a state of conviction ; when it is 
negative, it is in a state of non-conviction. Now, a positive 
state, a state of conviction, is the effect of some adequate 
cause. What can this cause be ? Certainly it must be evi- 
dence. Hence it conclusively follows, that if a man professes 
conviction in the absence of evidence, he professes that which is 
a natural impossibility, since he professes a positive state that 



272 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



can only be brought about by an adequate cause, which 
adequate cause is wanting. That evidence produces convic- 
tion is a law of God. Hence we may say, that, according to 
the will of God, moral evidence produces conviction. If con- 
viction can be voluntary, then an effect is produced for which 
there is a cause other than the will of God, and independent 
of that will. 

Hence, the turpitude, and hypocrisy, and unphilosophical 
character of choosing, or professing to choose, mental belief, 
in the absence of those motives or causes that can alone, in 
the providence of God, produce a positive state of the under- 
standing. 

But the whole thing becomes different when w^e come to 
direct our attention to an act of the will. ISTow an action is 
the effect of the cause of the will, i. e., the will causes action 
according to the will of God. Hence an action may be vol- 
untary ; that is to say, we may place ourselves under the con- 
trol of a motive — made such by God — and that motive, made 
a motive by God, may, at our desire, produce an action. 
Thus, we say, we voluntarily perform actions according to the 
will of God. Hence, we say faith or religious belief is the 
submission of the human will to the motive that has been 
made energetic or instinct with activity by God, in order that 
according to his providence we may be enabled to perform 
prescribed or foreordained actions. 

These important distinctions will be more fully argued in 
the succeeding chapter. 

Devils believe and tremble. They cannot believe and act. 
Like devils, wicked men, as under the control of the same 
derivative motive power, believe and tremble, but do not be- 
lieve and act. Hence belief is not a motive. An effect must 
have an adequate cause. Hence conversion does not result 
from belief. Belief is not a causing principle. Hence man, 
as a moral agent, cannot be characterized as a reasonable 



FAITH. 



273 



being, but as a motive, or willing being. Hence he is a 
motive moved by choice. Hence he is often a very unreason- 
able being. But he is never otherwise than a willing being — 
never acts without a choice, or a preference — or in one com- 
plete and full word, he never acts but from love. He either 
prefers good or evil. If he prefers good, he acts from' the 
motive of good, and vice versa. 

What is fear ? What is alarm ? What is dread, appre- 
hension, terror, disquietude, uneasiness ? They are nothing 
in the world, evidently, but want of a firm or safe will. Fear 
is not an intellectual quality, though qualified by the mind. 
It connects itself wholly with the will. Fear and courage 
are animal phenomena. The least intellectual men are not 
unfrequently the bravest men. Love is a strengthened will. 
Fear is instinctive knowledge. Hence it is an honest feeling. 
Divine love, or love of God or religion in man, is a human 
will divinely strengthened. Intellectual men know more, 
and hence fear more. Hence it is a potent lever in the sal- 
vation of the soul. But there is a distinction between in- 
stinctive and intellectual, or educated fear. Instinctive fear 
is a feeling we hold in common with the brutes. Hence it is 
a base fear, and is cowardice. But intellectual fear is the 
voice of truth and knowledge. Hence the feeling of fear upon 
the death-bed is the voice of truth and knowledge in intellec- 
tual men. It is the consciousness of infirmity of will, and 
the honest expression of that consciousness. It is confession 
of insecurity. It is an infirm religious will. The very oppo- 
site of this feeling is religion ; because religion is the rein- 
vigoration of the human will. Hence, it is philosophical 
for the Christian, at death, to be braver than at any other 
time. His courage is the result of an invigorated will. The 
will of God becomes the Christian's will, and triumph is the 
appropriate expression of God's will prevailing in man. But 
man's will alone is necessarily a cowardly will, because it has 
12* 



274 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



neither the necessary knowledge nor the necessary power 
upon which it can repose safely. 

The apprehension of the infidel is his truest and best friend. 
If he feels apprehension, he is in an insecure state, and it should 
teach him that he is not under the protection of the God that 
made him, for he would infuse his will into him if he loved 
him. The Christian feels secure because God loves him, and 
by that very union God infuses his will into him as a conse- 
quence. It is thence philosophically impossible for him to be 
molested by a sense of insecurity. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE WILL. 

In which is reconciled the Divine Foreordination 
with the Free Agency of Man, or the System of 
Christianity with the Laws of Moral Philosophy. 

The freedom of the human choice cannot be interfered 
with by the foreordination of God, because one decree would 
interfere with another decree. If it is allowed that man is a 
free agent, God's foreordination cannot interfere with this 
freedom without impairing it in the precise ratio of the inter- 
ference. Those theological writers who cannot reconcile the 
two — -that is to say, who cannot reconcile the foreordination 
of God with man's free agency, either run the doctrine of 
God's foreordination so far as to cripple the freedom of man, 
or they push man's freedom of choice to such lengths as to 
circumscribe and limit the true prerogatives of God. Hence, 
upon this subject the Christian world is divided into two 
parties, called Calvinistic and Arminian. "What is wanting 
to reconcile the two is, the knowledge of the true distinction. 

The Calvinist contends, that you must not push man's 
free agency so far as to destroy the sovereignty of God. 

The Arminian says, you must not push the sovereignty of 
God so far as to destroy the free agency of man. 

There is a distinction upon this subject that neither party 
has observed, and that is the distinction between free agency 
and the temporal administration of the world. We must 
remember that this is God's world, made by him, con- 



276 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



trolled by him, fixed by him in all its most minute particulars. 
Every event in this world is as much fixed by the sovereignty 
of God as though they were stereotyped in brass. There is 
but one first cause, and one only cause. No effect can pos- 
sibly spring from any other source, unless there be two first 
and distinct causes. God is the life — the motive principle — the 
cause of every action that takes place in the wide universe, from 
the regular motion of the planets to the falling of a hair. God 
is the only life, the only motion, the only motive, the sole and 
only active causing principle, either animal or mechanical, in 
creation. Being infinite, it is everywhere. God is not a being 
of a locality, but the one motor of the universe. That motor, 
that motive, that principle, the inspired writer calls " Love." 
Hence, no event in the universe can possibly occur unless 
foreordained by infinite love ; for if it could, love would be 
less than infinite, as it would imply another cause than the 
first cause ; and in the second place, a first cause something 
less than infinite. If an event could take place against the 
wish, or without the knowledge, or without the proximate or 
remote causing of the one God, it would imply that the one 
God was less than infinite, or that there were two distinct 
Gods. In such an event, we would behold the germ of the 
universe's destruction. Here we have the temporal adminis- 
tration of the world, by a first and only causing principle. 

In this world, thus administered, man is an actor. Is he 
free ? In the first place, we are to inquire, to what does 
human freedom relate ? What is the nature, object, and de- 
sign of human freedom ? It cannot be to bring actions to 
pass, because he has no original motive power — is a created 
being — has an imparted and prescribed life — is kept in being 
by another cause than any he can call his own. He cannot 
even sustain his own motive power. If the foreign, the im- 
parted motive principle, be withdrawn, his body sinks to 
dust, and his spirit into nonentity. 



THE WILL. 



277 



Man lives by God, whether in the body or out of the body. 
Take away God, and nonentity is the necessary consequence. 
This follows from the fact that there is but one cause. The 
object, then, of free agency is, that God may be obeyed. 
Human agency, to be agreeable to God, must be voluntary. 
The voluntary character of human agency is the only thing 
that distinguishes it from mechanical agency. If human 
agency were not free, it would be mechanical, as much so as 
the motion of the stars, or the hum of falling water, or the 
running of mechanical contrivances. This voluntary agency 
is tested by good and evil. The principle that moves him is 
love, or God, and this principle is constituted free in its 
ability to choose good, or God, or evil. The institution of 
evil arose out of the necessity of voluntary agency, for the 
agency could not be voluntary unless it had something to 
choose in opposition to the choice of God. Were there 
nothing in the world to choose but good, this choice would 
be necessary and unavoidable, and this would make the choice 
mechanical. Now, man is a choosing principle. What can 
he choose, since he cannot choose an action ? He can choose 
motives. There are then but two motives in the world — God, 
or good, which is an original motive, and evil, which is a 
created motive. The agent that chooses a good motive, in 
the providence of God brings forth a good action. The 
agent that chooses an evil motive, in the providence of God 
brings forth an evil action. The good motive is the love of 
God, and the evil motive is the love of evil. These princi- 
ples lie at the foundation of human agency. This leads us 
back to the one motor of the universe, and that is love. All 
men desire God. The love of happiness is the occult desire 
of God. They mistake evil for good, and love the creature 
instead of the Creator. Naturally all men love God. This 
follows from the fact that he was created with this predomi- 
nance of the good motive. But the fall of man has blinded 
12* 



278 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



his perceptions of and attachment to the true good. He still 
desires the true good, but unhappily, in consequence of his 
fall, seeks it in the creature. Much of the difficulty upon 
this complex subject arises from a misconception of the mean- 
ing of salvation and damnation. All the damnation and 
salvation men ever acquire, are acquired in this world, be- 
cause this is the trial state. The judgment of the other 
world is merely confirmatory of the choice or decisions of 
this. Salvation and damnation do not spring from God, 
they spring from man. Man chooses his own damnation, 
and chooses his own salvation. The choice of damnation is 
the choice of evil, and the choice of salvation is the choice of 
God. The motive of God is salvation, and the motive of 
evil is damnation. That agent is damned who chooses evil ; 
that agent is safe who chooses God. Hence, in God there 
is safety ; out of God there is no safety, or is damnation. 

It is not necessary to man's free agency that he shall be 
able to alter or modify a law of God. The laws of the phys- 
ical world, the laws of the moral world, and the laws of the 
Christian system are the fixed and unalterable laws of God, 
foreordained from all eternity. Though they were foreor- 
dained, it is to be observed that the laws of the mediatorial 
system did not begin to run, in point of time, until after the 
laws of the physical and moral world had had operation. 

It cannot be maintained, with any show of reason, that 
man is a free agent with respect to the circumstances of life. 
These are the results of God's general or particular provi- 
dence. It cannot be maintained that Cyrus was a free agent 
with respect to events predicted to be brought about by him. 
Mr. Watson says, " Cyrus was elected to rebuild the temple." 
The Jews were not free agents with respect to the act of the 
crucifixion of Christ, for it was fixed upon and foreordained 
in the counsels of eternal wisdom, and no human agency 
could have arrested it. 



THE WILL. 



279 



In this investigation the reader is desired to comprehend 
with distinctness what an action, or an event, or a circum- 
stance is, in relation to which man is the actor. Man is not 
the action. Man's motives are not the action. Take away 
man and man's motives from any given action, and what 
remains ? We put the strongest case in the world. We 
take the act of Christ, dead upon the cross, murdered by 
human hands. Now, remove from the consideration the 
murderers and the motives of the murderers, and what re- 
mains ? Nothing that can bear the stamp of criminality. 
There is nothing criminal in the death of Christ, according 
to the foreordained law of infinite love. Being the effect of 
infinite love for holy ends, the act is infinitely meritorious. 
All that was criminal about the action was the choice of the 
motives of evil by his murderers. 

Dr. Chalmers has remarked, that " every step of every 
individual character receives as determinate a character from 
the hand of God as every mile of a planet's orbit, or every 
gust of wind, or every wave of the sea, or every particle of 
flying dust, or every rivulet of flowing water. This power of 
God knows no exception ; it is absolute and unlimited." 
This solemn truth would be exhibited in a much clearer light, 
were we to change the doctor's language, so as to make it 
say, that u every act of every individual character, whether 
good or bad, is as de terrain a tely performed by the hand of 
God as every mile of a planet's orbit, or every gust of wind, 
or every wave of the sea." This follows from the fact that 
there is but one original cause in the universe, whose power 
or will is not transferable. 

Dr. Edmonds says : " Since the Scriptures ascribe all the 
actions of men to God, as well as to themselves, we may 
justly conclude that the divine agency is as much concerned in 
the bad as in the good actions. Many are disposed to make 
a distinction here, and to ascribe only the good actions of 



280 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



men to divine agency, while they ascribe their bad ones to 
the divine permission. But there appears no ground for this 
distinction in Scripture or reason." 

When Dr. Chalmers proceeds to say, that the power of 
God " gives birth to every purpose, gives impulse to every 
desire, gives shape and color to every conception, wields an 
entire ascendency over every attribute of the mind, and the 
will, and the fancy, and the understanding, with all the count- 
less variety of their hidden and fugitive operations, are sub- 
mitted to it," he evidently not only makes God the author 
of sin, but virtually terminates all hope of free agency. Free 
agency consists in the choice of motives, and evil motives 
lead to sinful actions ; and if God determines the choice, he 
dissipates the freedom of the agency, and is not only the 
author of the evil actions, but the criminal party in the acts. 
The causes of human action being but two, are imparted 
causes, and if a good action is effected, it is due to the im- 
parted cause, and the same may be said of an evil action. 
The power of committing evil actions by the imparted power 
of God is absolutely necessary in order to the experiment of 
free agency. If God had not granted to the agent the power 
to choose the motive to commit an evil action, an evil action 
could not have happened, and hence a good action would 
have been a necessary action, and hence void of merit. 

Had God imparted to Adam the power alone to perform 
good actions, the fall would never have occurred ; because a 
man has no original power, and not having any imparted 
power to perform an evil action, an evil action would have 
been an impossibility. Hence the source of all action is the 
power of God. Hence there is no sin in an action, but it 
lies in the choice of the motive. As we said, there are but 
two motives in the world of mankind — the love of evil and 
the love of good. God has made the love of good a motive 
of action, and he has made the love of evil a motive of ac- 



THE WILL. 



281 



tion. The same proposition may be differently stated. God 
has made the love of good a cause of good actions ; and he 
has made the love of evil a cause of evil actions. Or, God 
has imparted to good men a power to do good acts, and he 
has imparted to evil men the power to do evil acts. Or, God 
has given such vitality to the love of a good motive, that 
men are induced by it to perform good deeds, and he has 
imparted such vitality to the love of an evil motive, that bad 
men are induced or empowered by it to perform evil actions. 
Man cannot act without a motive ; for if he could, he would 
be God. A cause is a motive of action. A motive is a 
cause of action. God cannot act from a motive ; for if he 
could, he would be a creature, and the motive would be the 
God, or the first cause. God is the one and only motive or 
cause ; and when motive or cause acts, God acts. God acts 
independently, and hence not from any collateral cause, mis- 
called motive, with respect to a first cause ; for that would 
make the collateral cause the first cause. The first cause, 
upon the contrary, is God. 

In the original experiment with man these two causes 
and their vital energy were in full operation, until Adam 
failed in his probation, the penalty of which was the loss 
of the power of love of good. Love of good ceased to be 
a motive power in Adam when he gave himself up to the 
love of evil. Then he ceased to be a free agent, because the 
experiment of free agency failed in its freedom to choose 
good. If the efficacy of the power of love, as a motive prin- 
ciple, had not been withdrawn from Adam, there would have 
been no failure in his first trial, because after his sin he could 
still have continued to love God — continued still to. do good 
acts by the same original motive power — we say motive 
power, but we mean motive — he possessed at his creation. 
It was the existence of this motor that constituted the life 
of Adam's soul. 



282 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



Now the Christian system renews this motor. The Chris- 
tian system renews this power. The Christian system re- 
news this operating principle obtained by means of a con- 
dition. Man being a created being, can only act from the 
vital energy of a created, or imparted motus, or motive, or 
cause — all implying energy of action. There is no original 
energy of action but the one and only cause. It was in 
view of these considerations that St. Paul writes to the 
Ephesians, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings 
in heavenly places, in Christ, according as he hath chosen us 
in him before the foundation of the world." Hence we in- 
evitably infer that it is only according to, or in pursuance of 
the power of the motive obtained in the Christian system, 
according to which he hath chosen us, that we obtain spiritual 
blessings. It is in accordance with this principle, or motive, 
foreordained from all eternity, that we are now blessed with 
heavenly places in Christ. Hence are we also inevitably to 
infer, that it is not " according to" any power there may be 
found in the laws of moral philosophy — laws of older date 
than the laws of the Christian system, because they are natu- 
ral laws ; nor in man's will that we are blessed in heavenly 
places in Christ. Nor is it " according to" any other prin- 
ciple of power in man's nature, aside from the condition of 
the Christian system. 

St. Paul says farther, " We have boldness and access 

according to the eternal purpose." "What eternal purpose ? 
Why, undoubtedly according to the Christian system of sal- 
vation laws, which is the will of God. What does he say to 
Timothy ? " Be not thou ashamed of the testimony of our 
Lord who hath saved us with a holy calling, not ac- 
cording to our works, but according to his own purpose and 
grace, which was given in Christ Jesus before the world be- 
gan." This language would seem to be incapable of miscon- 



THE WILL. 



283 



struction. St. Paul tells his correspondent, that he should 
not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, who hath 
saved us with a holy calling — the calling of the Christian 
system — in opposition to, and exclusive of, all other modes, 
not according to native ability, not according to any energy 
of natural philosophy, not according to any goodness in our 
works, but according to the motive, or cause derivable from 
the Christian system that had been his divine purpose, and 
grace, and will, manifested in the face of Jesus Christ, before 
the world began. God has "predestinated us unto adoption 
of children by Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the 
good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his 
grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved." 

God has, according to this statement, predestinated, that is, 
willed, the human family unto adoption of children by Jesus 
Christ, unto himself, according to, or in pursuance of, the 
good pleasure of his will, the divine grace of the Christian 
system, the motive or cause wherein he hath made us ac- 
cepted in the beloved. 

It is according to the Christian system, with its condition, 
which is his foreordained will, or purpose, or calling, that 
God has determined from ail eternity, to receive the human 
family unto adoption of children to the praise of the glory of 
his grace, the source of the system. The Christian system 
originated in the grace of God, in the face of J esus Christ. 
No human soul can now, by any natural ability, obtain safety, 
except according to the Christian system. 

If you ask for a reconciliation of the predestination of 
events and systems with free agency, we answer, events and 
systems are the offsprings of God's sovereignty, not the 
products of human independent agency, and that human 
agency consists in the choice of one of two motives of action. 

The measure of the criminality of an act, is the quality of 
the motive that led to its performance. God never fore- 



284 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



ordains acts to perform which he does not foresee there will 
be the appropriate instruments ready and willing to choose 
to perform them. All men who are under the control of 
motives as corrupt and sinful as those that impelled the Jews 
to the crucifixion of the Son of God, are as criminal precisely 
in the sight of God, as if they had participated in that guilty 
tragedy. So far as the murderers of Christ are to be regard- 
ed, their guilt does not surpass the guilt of other murderers 
from like causes. The character of the cause gives character 
to the effect. The fact that Christ was the Son of God, does 
not enhance their guilt, unless you are able to fix upon them 
the knowledge of the character of the eminent personage who 
suffered at their hands, although it infinitely magnifies the 
horror of the transactions in the opinion of those who believe 
in the divinity of Jesus Christ. 

Calvinistic writers say, " If the Arminian turn upon us, and 
ask a reconciliation of free agency with predestination : if he 
wish to see the point of actual coherence between man's will 
and that of God, w T e frankly confess our ignorance."* " Upon 
such a subject," says Mr. Dick, " no man should be ashamed 
to acknowledge his ignorance." Certainly every man ought 
to be ashamed of his ignorance of what God designed he 
should know, as he most undeniably did with regard to free 
agency. The knowledge of free agency, either theoretically 
or from consciousness, is essential to the proper development 
of the experiment. 

In this investigation we must not lose sight of the charac- 
ter of man. Man is a created or limited principle or cause, 
choosing. Man is will, capable of acting under the impulse 
of a chosen cause. The responsible principle in man is his 
choice or choosing. The cause that moves him is not respon- 
sible for the action ; man is responsible for the choice of the 
cause or motive of action. God is the cause — motive is the 

* Presbyterian Review, January, 1852. 



THE WILL. 



285 



cause. God and motive have the same meaning. The choice 
is the guilty or the praiseworthy germ. When the will 
chooses a good cause, it chooses wisely, and good actions re- 
sult. When it chooses an evil cause, it chooses unwisely, and 
an evil action is the result ; but God is the cause of both 
actions. God, as we have said, has imparted a vitality to a 
cause, called love of evil, in order to have free agency, for 
without it there could be no good action. Man's intelligence 
does not enter into the matter of his choice. It is the intel- 
ligent will that chooses, as it is the will with eyes, or the see- 
ing will, that walks over the earth, and it is the will with 
ears that listens to sounds. Eyes do not walk, and ears do 
not hear, and intellect does not choose, but it is man, or hu- 
man will that does the three. To be sure, he has intellect, 
and he has eyes, and he has ears, and he has taste, and he 
has feeling ; but it is the will, or the soul, or the man, that 
possesses these endowments. Will is placed in a house most 
admirably constructed for his use. This house has a thought la- 
boratory, a vision laboratory, a sound laboratory, &c, for man's 
use. But within this curious tenement, it is the will that is the 
sovereign — and that will is a limited or created cause. Intel- 
lect is necessary to the experiment of free agency, as consti- 
tuted in this world of material objects ; and so are eyes, and 
so are ears, and so is feeling, and so is taste ; but then, it is 
the will, with these qualities, that has the trial to make. Take 
away taste, and the trial of drunkenness and gluttony, tem- 
perance in eating and drinking would be removed from the 
theatre of the trial. The will could not show forth the law 
of temperance. Take away hearing, and the experiment 
would nearly fail altogether. To remove sight, would be 
equally fatal. It is very certain that intellect is the master 
endowment and the most important, without which the trial 
of the will would fail altogether, but then it is but an endow- 
ment of the party on trial. 



286 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



When we fail to discriminate between the mind and the 
soul or will, we make as capital a mistake as when we fail to 
discriminate between the soul and the vision. The soul is not 
vision, because the soul also thinks. The soul is not mind, because 
the soul sees, and hears, and feels, and the mind does not. 
The soul wills, or is will, and the mind is not, and does not. 
Mr. Locke, in the opening sentence of his great work on the 
conduct of the understanding, says, " The last resort a man 
has recourse to in the conduct of himself is his understanding ; 
for though we distinguish between the faculties of the mind, 
and give the supreme command to the will, as to an agent ; 
yet the truth is, the man who is the agent, determines himself 
to this or that voluntary action, upon some precedent knowl- 
edge and appearance of knowledge in the understanding." 

The reader will observe that Mr. Locke says, that " the last 
thing a man has recourse to in the conduct of himself, is the 
understanding." 

It becomes important to know how a man has recourse to 
the understanding, as to the last resort, in order to govern 
himself. How otherwise than by volition ? Man does not 
possess volition. Man does not possess will. Man is nothing 
distinct from will — 'man is will. The will then turns to the 
understanding by voluntary action, in order to perceive the 
reasoning of the understanding. So far Mr. Locke — and it is 
sound philosophy, — but let us continue the quotation from 
this logical reasoner. He says, " No man ever sets himself 
about any thing but upon some view or other, which serves 
him for a reason for what he does ; and whatever faculties he 
employs, the understanding with such light as it has, well or 
ill informed, constantly leads; and by that light, true or false, 
all the operative powers are directed. The will itself, how- 
ever absolute and uncontrollable soever it may be thought, 
never fails in its obedience to the dictates of the understand^ 
ing." 



THE WILL. 



287 



This masterly genius has herein involved himself in contra- 
dictions and absurdities, that at this day would dishonor a 
schoolboy's logic, or a schoolboy's Christianity. 

This celebrated philosopher endows man with understand- 
ing, yet he disregards all consideration of the man as an agent 
endowed with an understanding — but considers the under- 
standing as both a thinking and a choosing principle ; and 
he thus gets rid of the agent, and nothing remains but the 
understanding, possessed of obedient will. This philosophy 
of Mr. Locke would be a much better philosophy were it a 
consistent philosophy, and did he but abide by his own dis- 
tinctions ; but the doctrine is not the one, nor does the writer 
observe the other. 

He says, " The truth is, the man, who is the agent, deter- 
mines himself to this or that voluntary action upon some 
knowledge or appearance of knowledge in the understand- 
ing ;" and though he thus clearly states that the agent, man, 
determines himself to a voluntary action, in consequence of a 
reason he sees in the understanding, yet he maintains the 
flatly opposite philosophy, that " the understanding, with 
such light as it has, well or ill informed, constantly leads" 
" The will itself, however absolute and uncontrollable soever 
it may be thought, never fails in its obedience to the dictates 
of the understanding." 

We know of no instance in the history of literary philosophy 
of the absurd and the contradictory greater and more glaring 
than is here presented to the reader in this extract. His 
work upon the conduct of the understanding opens with this 
consistent philosophy ! Can much be expected from the 
residue ? 

The first branch of the proposition is sound and unim- 
peachable ; that is to say, " no man" (but Mr. Locke, in 
order to be consistent, should have said no understanding), 
" no man ever sets himself about any thing, but upon some 



288 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



view or other which serves him for a reason for what he 
does ;" but when he proceeds to say that whatever faculties 
man may employ, the " understanding constantly leads, 
whether well or ill informed," and " that the will never fails 
in obedience to the dictates of the understanding," he evi- 
dently defeats his own first proposition. He flatly contradicts 
himself. If man sets himself about any thing for some view 
that serves him, the man constantly leads, and not the view 
or the reason. To change the words of the poet a little, 

" As the understanding bodies forth 
The forms of things unknown, the willing agent 
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 
A local habitation and a name." 

The question growing out of man's relation to the under- 
standing, is one of vast importance. If the will be an endow- 
ment of the understanding, then the understanding must be 
the responsible principle in man ; and if the understanding be 
an endowment of the will, then the will must be held ac- 
countable. It is the accountable principle that constitutes 
the man. If the will be a quality of mind, the mind is 
responsible for the will ; and if the mind be a quality of the 
will, the will is the responsible agent on trial, and man and 
will must be convertible terms. Man must be a unit. He 
must be a unit in order to possess endowments. He must be 
a one cause in order to be judged for his causings or acts. 
We always run back through qualities and endowments to the 
first original thing or quality, or cause qualified, or endowed. 
If man has endowments, then we must, in order to be consist- 
ent, run back through those endowments to find man. We 
do this invariably in natural philosophy. Now, if will be the 
original cause in man, and mind and vision and other natural 
organs be the organizations, or endowments, or qualities of the 
will, whenever we find the will we find the man. If mind be 
the original cause, and will, and vision, and other organs be the 



THE WILL. 



289 



endowments of the mind, then when we find the mind we 
find the man. So if man be mind, the only thing responsible 
about him must be this first cause. If this were so, man's con- 
demnation would be exclusively for the incorrect perceptions 
of the intellect. On the contrary, if man be will, then man's 
condemnation would be for incorrect choosing, or incorrect 
willing. It is impossible for man to be mind and will, because 
they are of dissimilar qualities or characteristics, and he would 
cease to be man in the singular, and would be men in the 
plural, and there would have to be two judgments and two 
punishments of different character. And every human body 
would contain two men, like the Siamese twins. If God be 
love, it is impossible for man to be mind in the very nature of 
things, if God be the only God. If God be infinite love, man 
must be moved by finite love, unless man be made by some 
other God, which would imply that the first God was not infi- 
nite. If God be infinite and God be love, there can neither be 
another distinct God, nor can man act from any other cause 
than love. If the only original cause be love, all derivative 
causes must be love. Man is a cause ; this it — he causes 
effects according to the power of the first and only cause. 
Hence man must be an imparted cause. The same reasoning 
applies to mechanism, as well as to man. Mechanical causes 
are the derived power of the first cause. The principle of 
expansion in heated water is a mechanical power by which 
boats are propelled. Now, every thing about a boat is a 
quality or endowment of this first derived cause. The wheels 
are not the boat, the wood is not the boat, the iron is not 
the boat, but the boat is the cause qualified or endowed. A 
boat is the mechanical power of heated water in material 
organization, as man is will in material organization. The 
cause of the qualified steamboat is God. It is God mani- 
fested in unintelligent nature or materiality. The only dis- 
tinction between this cause and man is, that this cause is 



13 



290 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



unintelligent in the one case, and intelligent in the other, and 
God constructs the material organization of the one, and man 
of the other. But we must bear in mind that in man it is 
the cause that possesses intelligence. The animal life in 
brutes is a cause, and that cause is God ; and the same dis- 
tinction prevails between the cause in brutes and the cause 
in man, and is, that brutes have no mind and have a different 
material habitation. Brute power differs from mechanical 
power in the particular that brutes have aniinal life, and 
animal instinct, and animal organization. There is and 
can be but one infinite cause. Its infinity is ex vi termini 
exclusive of another original cause. 

All that we have to do in order to find man, is to find 
the voluntary principle, or the free causing principle, like 
expansion in heated water. If mind be a voluntary causing 
principle, then mind is man, and mind must be judged, and 
mind must suffer punishment. 

No philosophy can be truer than that if man wishes to 
perform a good action, he gets God to perform it for him ; 
if he wishes to do an evil action, he gets God to perform 
it for him. This follows because there is but one God, 
or first and only cause. God has agreed to perform evil 
actions for man, because, unless he had so agreed, he never 
could have enabled the man to do the voluntary or the 
chosen good act. It is this imparted power to do evil actions 
that makes good actions voluntary, and hence virtuous and 
commendable. Suppose God were to withhold the power 
from man to do an evil act, how could there be a trial of 
free agency ? and how could there be a voluntary good 
action ? It would be impossible in the very nature of things, 
under the administration of an infinite God. Because, being 
infinite, he is thence the only cause. Without a cause man 
cannot do any thing, because he is a created being. The 
goodness of a good action is its choice in view of a possible 



THE "WILL. 



291 



evil action. Mr. Edwards says, M That every act of the will 
has some cause, and consequently has a necessary connection 
with its cause, and so is necessary ; a necessity of connection 
and consequence is evident by this, that every act of the 
will is excited by some motive. But if every act of the' will 
is excited by a motive, that motive is the cause of the act. 
If the acts of the will are excited by motives, then the mo- 
tives are the causes of their being excited, or what is the 
same thing, the cause of their existence. And if so, the exist- 
ence of the acts of the will is properly the effects of their 
motives. Motives do nothing as motives or inducements, 
but by their influence, and so much as is done by their influ- 
ence is the effect of them." 

Now, thus far, Mr. Edwards teaches the soundest philos- 
ophy. It will live forever. But when we continue the quo- 
tation, it will be found that he wanders from the truth into 
the most contradictory and pernicious error, from the want of 
just discrimination and self-consistency. There can be no 
doubt, that every act of the will is excited by a motive, and 
that the motive, under God, is the cause, of the act. This 
arises from the nature of God, as the one and only motive. 
But when Mr. Edwards renews the subject, and says, "And 
if volitions are properly the effect of motives, then they are 
necessarily connected with their motives," he involves himself 
in an absurdity. How can volitions be the effect of motive, 
if motive be the cause of actions ? Volition is the choice of 
motive ; volition is selecting a cause — a cause vital to pro- 
duce actions. Man has no original power of action. He 
must choose a power. Volition is free or otherwise, only as 
it has ability to procure the aid of some original causing 
power or motive. Mr. Edwards confounds acts with volition. 
He considers choice and an act as convertible tenns, where- 
as one is the volition of the creature, and the other the act 



292 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



of the Creator, or the effect of the chosen cause. There is a 
wide chasm between the will and an act. 

The will is a choosing principle, acting from a derived or 
imparted power or motive. Now, there are but two powers, 
or motives, or causes of action submitted to man's choice by 
his Creator — the love of good or the love of evil. The love 
is the motive. Hence, if man wishes to perform a good 
action, he acts from the love of it. If he wishes to perform 
an evil action, he acts from the love of it. Now, the love in 
these proposed instances is the motive, the power, the cause. 
Man chooses this motive. In this world, God has so arranged 
probation that nothing can produce an action but the motive, 
or cause, or power, or energy of love of good or evil. Man 
cannot produce an action by independent self-determination. 
He has to determine by selecting a cause capable of producing 
actions. God has endued love with a vital energy ; he has 
made a motive or a cause out of it, for the benefit of the 
will. He has made love of good the motive or the cause 
whereby a good action may be produced. He has made love 
of evil the motive or the cause whereby a sinful action may be 
produced. Now, man is not a cause in the sense that he can 
produce actions, but he is a choosing principle in the sense 
that he can choose a cause or a motive that can produce 
actions whereby he can produce an action. Hence man is 
free in his choice, as he is able freely to choose or prefer, the 
motive or cause of good or evil. All voluntary actions, so 
called, are the effects of a motive freely chosen. 

This philosophy will yet more plainly appear as we pro- 
gress with the discussion. 

Mr. Edwards says, " Those actions are free which are the 
effect of volition." What, actions free that are " effects !" 
Actions free, when " every act of the will is excited by a mo- 
tive, and that motive is the cause of the act, and man is not 
the cause I" Singular sort of freedom this. A man free with 



THE WILL. 



293 



respect to an action caused by a cause — not man — distinct 
from man ! If motive causes actions, man cannot freely 
cause them, unless man be the motive. 

In inquiring into the freedom of the human will, the im- 
portant element of the effects of the fall of the human •will 
are never to be kept out of sight. The experiment of free 
agency under the Christian system, is different from what it 
was under the original Adamic dispensation. If man's will 
were free to choose a motive, as it was originally constituted, 
the Christian system would have been unnecessary. The 
Christian religion supplies the place of the original natural abil- 
ity of man to choose good or love by free agency. The Chris- 
tian system furnishes a motive or a cause supplying the loss of 
the original motive. What man cannot do naturally, he can 
accomplish indirectly, by the aid of the Christian system, or 
cause, or power, or assistance. Man cannot choose God 
directly, but he can choose the advantages of the motive of 
the Christian system, by complying with its condition. 

" Choice, without the possibility of other or contrary 
choice," in the words of Dr. Beecher, " is the immemorial 
doctrine of fatalism. The theory of choice, that it is what it 
is by a natural constitutional necessity, and that a man can- 
not help choosing what he does choose, and can by no possi- 
bility choose otherwise, is the doctrine of fatalism in all its 
forms." Choice, without the possibility of other or contrary 
choice, is the condition of all men who disregard the motive 
power of the Christian system ; because they are in the fallen 
estate in which Adam involved his issue. There are now un- 
der the operation of the system of Jesus Christ but two active 
motives applicable to man's moral condition. The only ques- 
tion of any interest is, Can man naturally procure the benefit 
of the motive of this system ? Has he a natural power to 
choose to reinvigorate his will by a new power procured by 
certain means of grace, looking to a condition of grace ? A 



294 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



self-determining power of the will, except as modified with 

respect to certain provisions of the Christian system, is, of 
all infidel notions, the most completely infidel. A self- 
determining power of the will, producing an action, cannot 
be influenced by any thing, or it would then cease to be self- 
determined ; and if it is influenced in performing the action 
by a cause distinct from the power of God, or if it is moved 
by a self-power, it follows that God is not an infinite being, 
or infinite cause, since here is a cause distinct from him. 

The evident object in the experiment of free agency is, that 
man may freely choose either one of two causes, viz., love of 
good or evil. Now, if God influences the choice of the mo- 
tive, he, to the extent of the influence, destroys the experi- 
ment. His object in furnishing two causes of actions is, that 
man may choose one of the two with freedom. If God inter- 
feres with the freedom of this choice, he manifestly undoes 
what he is supposed to do in the experiment of free agency. 
Free agency means free choice. Free choice of what ? Free 
choice of a power or motive of acting. We must bear in 
mind that God is the motive in both cases, that is to say, he 
is the motive in good actions, and he is the motive in evil 
actions ; and if he influences man to choose God, that is a 
termination of the experiment, and man becomes a necessary 
agent ; and if he influences him to choose the motive in evil, 
that is also a termination of the experiment, and man becomes 
a necessary evil agent, and God becomes the author of sin, if 
it be sin to do something seemingly sinful under divine thrust- 
ing-on. The Christian system is God's will. This brings to 
view the distinction between choice of motives and choice of 
actions. Man cannot choose actions. Man, in his fallen con- 
dition, cannot by direct ability choose the motive of good — 
cannot choose God directly — for there is no such motive out 
of the Christian system. The Christian system is the way to 
the choice of good. Now, suppose a sinner wdshes to choose 



THE WILL. 



295 



good — wishes to choose the motive of good, so that he may 
perform an act of acceptable worship of God — he is unable to 
do it. But we say he can do it circuitously or indirectly. What 
has he, then, to do to obtain this motive power ? Now, there 
is a motive power in every command of Jesus Christ. The 
sinner can choose or desire to perform the mechanical action 
of prayer ; he can choose to perform the mechanical action 
of listening to a preached Gospel ; he can choose to perform 
the mechanical action of fasting, or of baptism, <fcc. ; because^ 
in doing these, or in choosing the motive to do these acts, the 
motive brings the acts ; or, in other words, God enables the 
sinner thus willing, and the worse sinner, to do these things. 
The sinner has a power to obey Christ just as fully as the 
lame man had the power to arise and walk at the command 
of Jesus Christ. God's will is God's power, and God's com- 
mand is God's will, and Christ is God. 

There is a vitality in the laws of the Christian system. 
There is a divine power in the laws of the Christian system. 
There is a motive in the commands of Jesus Christ, and all 
that is required is obedience, which is choice. Now, the 
motive, the vitality, the power of the laws of the Christian 
system, have an end in view. This it is important to ob- 
serve. That end is to restore the lost voluntary power of the 
will. When a man becomes a Christian, he is reinstated in 
the position Adam originally occupied, and can then choose 
voluntarily, as Adam originally did, to love God with a su- 
preme affection, which is full obedience. Man cannot per- 
form an action without the motive of God. Hence he chooses 
motives. In every inquiry into the laws of moral philosophy, 
we should always view man in two aspects : 

1st, As disconnected from the Christian system. 

2d, As connected with it. 

The system of the Christian religion, and the laws that 
prevail under it, are something offered to man posterior tc 



296 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY, 



his creation. Hence moral philosophy and Christianity are 
different and distinct systems. Moral philosophy, and all the 
laws of moral philosophy, and natural laws, were in existence 
and full operation controlling men when men are born. 
There has been no abrogation of those laws. They are now 
what they were when Adam was created. They act now 
upon Adam's children as they acted upon Adam when he 
was created. Hence metaphysical philosophy prevails with 
human nature. The fixed laws of moral and metaphysical 
philosophy prevail with man just as effectually as though 
the laws of the Christian system were obliterated from exist- 
ence. Hence, in this sense, Hobbes, and Priestley, and Clarke, 
and Hume, and Gregory were correct in their doctrines of 
philosophy with respect to the necessary agency of man, 
Disconnected from the laws of the salvation system of Jesus 
Christ, every event, every circumstance of life, are as fixed 
• and predestinated as Calvin could have desired, and Chal- 
mers painted. Man's free agency failed in the fall. Of 
course, we do not maintain that man thus circumstanced is 
a tree agent. Man became a free agent only after the Chris- 
tian system and its peculiar laws began to run. There is no 
freedom of the will outside of the system of Jesus Christ, 
The will of God follows the commands of Jesus Christ. The 
laws of the Christian system are granted laws — are the divine 
will offered to human nature. When ? Not at man's crea- 
tion. When man turns for aid to the peculiar collateral 
granted laws of the Christian system, he admits by that act, 
that, according to the laws of moral philosophy, he cannot 
do w T hat he desires to accomplish, and which he can only 
accomplish by the aid of the Christian system. When man 
turns for assistance to the system of the Christian religion, he 
escapes from the field of moral philosophy. When man 
turns to the Christian system, he admits that the doctrine of 
necessity is true, and desires to avoid it, by the embracement 



THE WILL. 



297 



of a better system in this regard. Every Christian admits 
that he has no self-determining power of volition, or he would 
not appeal to the Christian system for a motive. He, by 
that act, professes his willingness to lean upon the means 
and instrumentalities of that system. He abandons his own 
original natural power or force of independent volition, and 
trusts his bark to the pilotage of Jesus Christ. Whoever 
comes to Christ, has to admit that of himself he can do 
nothing. This is the specific admission of the truth of the 
doctrine of necessity outside of the Christian system. All are 
predestinated who do not avail themselves of the advantages 
of the Christian system. Those who apply to this system 
are " led by the spirit," their " infirmities are helped by the 
spirit," and they " walk by the spirit." 

Man has a natural ability to do many things that have 
the appearance of being religious. He may, by natural 
capacity, perform the outside duties of religion, the mum- 
meries of the system ; may be moral, kind to those that are 
kind to him ; give, where he may expect a return in kind, or 
in the plaudits of the world ; wear a sanctimonious air and 
habit ; advise, exhort, intreat with vehemence, persuade with 
eloquence, be wise in the wisdom of the world, excel in 
knowledge of the exact sciences, become thorough master of 
logic, and useful in all the relations of life, and may be in- 
clined to be religious, but he cannot love God with a free, 
and cannot love man with a disinterested affection ; or, in 
other words, he cannot in all things be governed by the will 
of God. He is not able to sink his own will into the will of 
God by voluntary natural ability. 

Aside from the choice of the motive of the Christian reli- 
gion, we believe, with Calvin, that " nothing can happen but 
what is subject to God's knowledge, and decreed by his will ; 
that it should be considered as indubitably certain that all 
the revolutions visible in the world proceed from the secret 

13* 



298 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



exertions of the divine power ; that what God decrees must 
necessarily come to pass ; that even thieves, homicides, and 
other malefactors, are instruments of divine providence whom 
the Lord uses for the execution of the judgments which he 
has appointed. ; that whatsoever comes to pass, comes to 
pass by virtue of the absolute, omnipotent will of God, which 
is the primary and supreme cause of all things." We believe 
this fully, and yet believe that it is fully out of the range of 
free agency. Free agency consists in the choice of motives. 
It does not consist in the choice of actions. jSTow, choice is 
not an action. Choice cannot be influenced by motive, be- 
cause choice puts the motive into excitement, and because God 
is the only motive, and it is not his purpose to influence the 
choice of himself, or of the contrary choice of the motive of 
love of evil. Man was originally created with an ability to 
choose God or to choose evil. 

The reader must draw a distinction between the influence 
of motives and the attractions existing in natural objects or 
reasons. There are certain attractions existing in material 
objects of life, sometimes regarded as reasons, but they do 
not constitute motives, because motives are vital with energy 
to produce actions, and the attractions of the things of this 
life are so many trials to the human agent instituted by God. 
The attractions of life are trials or occasions by which God 
tests the free agent's choice of motives, the attractions not 
existing in the objects but in the agent. If Adam had always 
chosen the motive of love of God, the tree of the knowledge 
of good and evil could not possibly have had any attractions. 
A thing never has attractions for us, unless we desire it. The 
existence of the desire precedes the existence of the attraction. 
There are no attractions in evil things to God. Hence there 
can be no attractions in things prohibited to a soul in which 
the will of God has full and undisputed dominion. What 
motive can their be in a quantity of gold to the thief, and in 



THE WILL. 



299 



a beautiful woman to the adulterer ? Nothing external to 
his desire. A motive is a cause, not an attraction. We 
admit the attraction, but deny the motive. There is no mo- 
tive in money, because it is nothing but hard shining clay, 
inactive and without being. It cannot produce an effect. It 
does not partake of the nature of God, who is the only mo- 
tive known to philosophy or revelation. There is an attrac- 
tion in money, because it may contribute to the indulgence 
of the sinful desires of man's polluted nature. But the at- 
traction is nothing essential, for the motive that causes the 
attraction to exist, reigns over the will, and desire is but a 
manifestation of the will. When Adam gave reins to the 
love of the forbidden fruit, his fall was to all intents and pur- 
poses perfected, for it produced its proper effect in the sinful 
indulgence when opportunely served. 

Men who are under the influence of the motive of the love 
of evil, bring forth evil deeds, as certainly as a heavy body 
falls to the earth by gravitation. They cannot help them- 
selves while the motive continues to prevail. "The good 
that I would, I do not," says the apostle, " but the evil which 
I would not, that I do." In this case the motive of love of 
evil prevails. The way to correct this, is to procure the 
motive of the Christian system to displace the motive of the 
love of evil, and re-establish in the will the predominance of 
the love of God. To make this consistent is the gordian 
knot. Let the reader have patience. 

So, when Calvin says, that " not only the heavens and the 
earth, and inanimate creatures, but also the deliberations and 
volitions of men are so governed by his providence, as to be 
directed to the end appointed by it," we beg to say, that we 
think entirely otherwise. God cannot control the volitions of 
men with respect to the choice of good or evil, without at 
the same time destroying the experiment of free agency. 

So, when Witsius says, "Neither does God only excite and 



300 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



predetermine the will of men to vicious actions, so far as they 
are actions, but he likewise so excites it, that it is not possi- 
ble but that thus acted upon, it shall so act," he uses the 
proper language to express the idea of a void experiment of 
free agency. There is a distinction to be observed here, to 
which the attention of the reader is called. So far as the 
will of a sinner is under the control of his state, he may be 
said to be controlled in his volition by the will of God, since 
there is no motive within his reach by which he can rid him- 
self of its mastering influence, but the motive of the Chris- 
tian religion. But as God has granted to the human family 
the motive of the Christian religion, all who continue to sin 
under the control of the predominance of the law of sin, or 
the dominion of the carnal mind, may be said to do so volun- 
tarily, since it is in their power to procure the benefit of the 
Christian religion, or motive. 

Calvinists cannot escape from the consequences of their 
own favorite doctrine, that there is but one cause in the uni- 
verse — a proposition not to be questioned. So, if a man's 
volition is controlled so that he sins in virtue of the control, 
it is not the man that sins, but the one cause, which is God. 

Calvin says, that " whatever comes to pass, comes to pass 
by virtue of the absolute omnipotent will of God, which is 
the primary and supreme cause of all things. The will of 
God is so the cause of all things as to be itself without a cause ; 
for nothing can be the cause of that which is the cause of 
every thing. So that the divine will is the ne plus ultra of 
all our inquiries. When we ascend to that, we can go no 
farther." 

If there be one doctrine above another to which Calvinists 
are irrevocably committed, it is to the one that God is the 
cause of all actions. Now, if the attractions existing in the 
forbidden things of life be motives, then God, as the one 
motive, must exist in the forbidden things of life, and must 



THE WILL. 



301 



constitute their attraction. Hence God must be the motive 
that influences the adulterer in his desire to commit his deed 
of sin. If God be the only cause or motive of an action, and 
he controls the volition, then is he beyond dispute, the insti- 
gator of every evil action that has ever occurred, from the 
death of his own Son to the pettiest theft of the age. The 
true doctrine upon this subject appears, we think, to be this, 
that God is the motive of all actions, growing out of his un- 
divided sovereignty ; but that man had the ability originally 
and has now the ability, in virtue of the motive of the Chris- 
tian religion, to choose either the love of God or the love of 
evil. If he chooses love of God, then this motive, under the 
providence of God, brings forth good deeds, such as God 
foreordains ; and if he chooses the love of evil, this motive, 
under the providence of God, brings forth evil deeds, by a 
like divine settlement. 

Anterior to every action there is the choice of motive, be- 
cause no action takes place but from a motive. This neces- 
sarily results from the consideration that man has no self- 
determining power of action, since he is a created being, and 
God is the cause of his being. This choice is either that of 
the love of good or the love of evil, since these are the only 
causes of actions God has instituted in this probation. 'Now, 
when a sinner commits a sinful action, the act is the effect, 
by previous eternal predestination, of his chosen motive or 
cause. The motive may have been the result of his condi- 
tion by reason of the fall, which is the case of those who 
have no personal knowledge of the Christian system ; or the 
result of choice, when that knowledge has reached him, since 
he might avoid it by choosing the other motive of the Chris- 
tian religion, that was introduced to supply the damage of 
the fall, by complying with its condition — a thing that he can 
do by voluntary choice of motive, according to, and which 
is, the will of God, 



302 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



Upon the subject of free agency, the Arminian, relying 
on his consciousness, insists upon the freedom of the will ; and 
unable to give the philosophical theory of what is undoubt- 
edly true, pushes his doctrine so far as to destroy the sove- 
reignty of God. Pressed by the Calvinist with the doctrine 
of but one original cause, he flies for relief to the heresy of a 
self-determining cause, and thereby annihilates God's sov- 
ereignty. 

Archbishop King will not allow that the will is influenced 
by reason, even as a motive ; for if it is, he argues, the mo- 
tive must be the cause, and that would destroy the freedom 
of the will ; and thus, according to the Arminian notion, the 
will is never free, unless it acts foolishless, or independently of 
God or of motive. 

The Calvinist, upon the other hand, basing his doctrine 
upon the undeniable proposition of the sovereignty of God, is 
carried by it into the predestination of the human volition, 
to the entire destruction of human agency. Pressed by 
the Arminian with the direful consequences of his doc- 
trine, and unable to give the true philosophical theory, he 
flies for relief either to the proposition that man cannot 
be responsible, if the motive to action be insufficient, as 
God is the only motive, and what he has failed to do as the 
only causing power, man cannot supply by creating a cause, 
since man cannot make a cause or motive any greater or Less 
by self-determination, because self-determination would be an 
act of divine power ; or, like Calvin, boldly to the assump- 
tion of the terrific consequences of his theory, and holds that 
God's " providence is established as the governor in all the 
counsels and works of men, so that it not only exerts its 
power in the elect, who are influenced by the Holy Spirit, but 
also compels the compliance of the reprobates." 

All this difficulty arises from the want of discrimination as 
to the office and design of a free, created will. God, as a 



THE WILL. 



303 



being of infinite love, desires voluntary love from man, not 
voluntary actions; i. e., he desires the will to choose him 
freely. Nothing could have been easier than for God to make 
the will of man love him, as the wills of brutes love, or as 
the mechanical powers of nature love him. Love, in ,the 
creature, means the submission of the will ; and when this 
will is submitted freely, it is then voluntary love. The will 
in brutes, and the mechanical forces of nature, are submitted 
to God involuntarily. God has impressed his will upon these 
two forces unchangeably upon their part. God then desires 
tiie free submission of the will of man to him, so that he 
may reign supreme over willing hearts. When this is ef- 
fected, the two are in unison. We are united to God when 
our wills are lost in the will of God. This is perfect love. 
The first human will that God ever created was created in 
unison with him, and that unison was voluntary up to a cer- 
tain period in its history. There can be no voluntary love 
without a test of it. "Without the test, it would cease to be 
voluntary, and be mechanical. Here arose the necessity for 
the institution of moral evil. Hence the forbidden tree. God 
gave Adam the power to love the prohibited fruit or to love 
himself with a voluntary affection. Here was the test of 
choosing ; here was the trial of free agency : either to love 
God or to love the prohibited fruit. These are the two free 
motives of fixed actions. Adam could not have eaten of the 
fruit without the power of God. Hence he could not have 
been free without this power ; hence God gave him the power : 
that is to say, God gave to the love of evil the power to pro- 
duce the foreordained evil actions. So, when Adam loved 
the fruit, the motive of evil was chosen, and he did so neces- 
sarily, by first ceasing to love God. Had he continued to 
love God, he could not have loved the fruit by possibility, be- 
cause God is not inconsistent. When he loved God, God, or 
that motive or love, controlled his action, and his actions were 



304 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



necessarily obedient; but when be loved the evil, another 
cause began to work : he chose the motive of evil, and the 
motive of evil having been endowed by God with a vital en- 
ergy of action, produced the evil action. Hence, actions 
spring from motive, and sin from choice of the motive. When 
Adam chose the motive of evil, he sinned, and he knew it 
would result in disobedient actions. Hence, his sin consisted 
in choosing or loving a power, or a cause, or a motive, whose 
tendency is to produce evil actions, according to the fixed law 
of God. The love of God, upon the contrary, has a tendency 
to produce good actions, according to the fixed law of God. 
In the first instance, Adam could choose either motive ; but 
when he sinned, he lost the power to choose God again, or the 
good motive, and hence continued to sin, from the unavoid- 
able tendency of the evil motive. This gave rise to the ne- 
cessity of a new motive power. Hence the Christian system. 
By means of the agencies of this system, man can recover 
this lost power, which is the Christian religion. By the 
means of this system, and by its means alone, men can re- 
cover the power Adam lost of loving God with a full and vol- 
untary love, thereby rendering a perfect obedience. But he 
does not accomplish this by the direct exercise of his will. 
The Christian, having acquired the full measure of the Chris- 
tian religion, may become as purely sanctified as was Adam 
when he first sprang from the hand of God ; and it is effected 
because he gets under the dominion of the will of God, as set 
out in the revealed Scriptures. 

This theory commends itself to the Calvinist, because it 
leaves nothing to chance, nothing to the self-determining 
power; yields the predestination of every action, from the 
uniformity of planetary motion to the career of every particle 
of flying dust ; from the courses of the ocean tide to those of 
the smallest rivulet ; from the actions of man to those of the 



THE WILL. 



305 



minute animalculae whose Jife is rounded to the span of a 
moment. 

It commends itself to the Arminian, because it establishes 
the freedom of the human will with reference to the interests 
of salvation, maintains the fulness of the redemption scheme 
and its irrespective character, is relieved of the infidel doc- 
trine of a power of motion in man not deducible from God, 
makes man the free artificer of his own eternal undoing, and 
rescues the character of God from the horrible doctrine of 
the predestination of the human volition. 

All that the Christian has to do is, not to desire, but to pre- 
fer to act always from the motive of supreme love of God, 
upon every occasion in which he is called upon to act, and 
his actions will take care of themselves. They are under the 
government of God. 

Ail the sinner has to fear is his love of evil ; for his 
actions, under the providence of God, will be in exact ratio to 
the amount of his depraved affection. He who loves evil 
the most, will illustrate that motive by the worse actions. He 
who loves evil the least, will illustrate the principle by a cor- 
responding deportment. 

In conformity with this doctrine, the inspired writer says 
that the love of money is the root of all the evil money pro- 
duces. " He that abideth in me and I in him," says the Son 
of God, " the same bringeth forth much fruit ; for without me 
ye can do nothing." God is love. Without love we can do 
nothing. " If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a 
branch, and is withered." Jesus saith, " I am the way, and 
the truth, and the life." Love is the way, and the truth, and 
the life. " Continue ye in my love," says Christ. " If ye 
keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love." It is this 
love that the sinner has to choose, and he chooses it by obeying 
Christ, under the aids and advantages of the Christian system 
conducting him to its condition, elsewhere explained. 



306 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



Calvinists regard salvation as the act of God, whereas it is 
the choice of the creature. It is the choice of God instead 
of evil. There is no distinction between salvation and safety, 
and none between salvation and love, and none between sal- 
vation and God, and none between grace and salvation, nor 
between God and the will of God. Whoever chooses God, 
or the will of God, is safe, has salvation, has love, has grace, 
has God. As Calvin says, the " divine will is the ne plus 
ultra of all our inquiries. When we assent to that we can 
go no farther." So, also, with equal error, Calvinists regard 
sin as an act. It is not so. It is a choice. There is no sin 
in an abstract action. Men cannot choose evil actions freely, 
because they are the effects of a particular cause. They must 
certainly first choose the cause. The experience of every 
man is, that his choice of actions is not free. Man is no 
causing agent, except as he is permitted to cause, in vir- 
tue of the causing power of a motive or cause derived 
from, or rather being identical with, God. Hence, in order 
to cause an action he has to rely upon a borrowed or 
derived cause, and that must be God, since he is the only 
cause. But men may choose a cause under God's dispensa- 
tion. So sin is a choice, and not an action. It is sinful to 
prefer evil. Does God influence this choice ? Then God 
chooses sin, and not the will of man. The will of man must 
be free in the choice of the cause of evil, or he is not free. 
So it must also be free in the choice of God. With regard 
to the will, the most opposite opinions are entertained by 
ethical writers. President Edwards regards the will as the 
" mind drawing a conclusion, or coming to a choice between 
two or more things proposed." "The will," says he, "is 
that power by which the mind chooses any thing. The 
faculty of the will is that power or principle of the mind by 
which it is capable of choosing. An act of the will is the 
same as an act of choosing or choice. The very act of 



THE WILL. 



30? 



the volition itself is doubtless a determination ; i. e., it is 
the mind drawing a conclusion, or coming to a choice, be- 
tween two or more things proposed. God has endued the 
soul with two faculties ; one is that by which it is capable of 
perception and speculation, or by which it discerns, and 
views, and judges of things, which is called the understand- 
ing. The other faculty is that by which the soul does not 
merely perceive and view things, but is in some way inclined 
to them, or is disinclined or averse from them. This faculty 
is called by various names. It is sometimes called inclina- 
tion, and as it has respect to the actions that are determined 
and governed by it, is called the will." 

We are then to understand by the will the mind, or a 
faculty of the mind. The important question at issue is, 
whether God has imparted intelligence to the choosing prin- 
ciple, or a choosing faculty to intelligence. Man is either a 
choosing principle, possessed of mind or intelligence, or he 
is mind or an intelligent principle, possessed of a choosing 
faculty. He must be either the one or the other, and he 
cannot be both. Beyond all question God is a willing prin- 
ciple possessed of intelligence, if we are authorized to rely 
upon revelation for our opinions of his character. By the 
inspired writers God is said to be love. Now, love is a caus- 
ing principle, and God is the first and only cause. If man 
be a created cause he must be of the same character as the 
cause that made him. In the daily philosophy of life we find 
love to be the ruling and governing principle of all human 
actions. The want of any. thing, and the desire for any thing, 
which are the phenomena of love, are the moving principles 
of human conduct. Men do not act because their intelligence 
urges them. They often act when their intelligence urges 
them not to act. But man never acts in opposition to the 
will, unless force be externally employed to propel him. 
However reluctantly a man may act, he never acts unless he 



308 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



wills to act, because the will is the only sub-cause of action. 
Paradoxical as it may seem, man may be said to be hung 
willingly, whenever he submits his neck to the offered noose 
of the hangman's rope. He wills to do it, or chooses to do 
it, in view of all the circumstances. If he did not will to 
do it, brute force could alone carry the sentence into effect. 
Man is never deprived of his will. He often looses his 
intelligence, and often outrages it. 

If God be love, characterized by wisdom and power, his 
creature, if made in his image, must be love, characterized 
by wisdom and power. Man, then, in his perfect state, must 
be love possessed of certain attributes of power and mind. 

However man may be characterized we are, if we rely 
upon revelation for our information, to regard him as a 
created causing principle, or rather, a sub-cause, or sub-caus- 
ing principle, emanating from the first cause, and placed upon 
probation. Now, if the probation of this sub-cause has a 
nearer affinity to the mind than it has to the will, then it 
would be proper to conclude that man was mind charac- 
terized by a choosing faculty. But if, upon the contrary, this 
probation relates more nearly to the choosing principle than 
to the mind, we will have to conclude without difficulty 
that man is a choosing principle characterized by intelligence, 
or mind. Man, then, is an intelligent sub-cause, or a sub- 
cause intelligent. The question is a very important one ; it 
is, indeed, intensely important, for upon it depends the one 
of the condition of probation under the present salvation dis- 
pensation. If man be mind characterized by will and power, 
then any condition — as faith, for example — addressed to him 
in his capacity of man, would relate exclusively to the mind, 
and it would have to consist in the deductions of the intellect 
exclusively. But if man be will, or a choosing principle, 
characterized by mind and powe?\ or mind and an effect- 
producing principle, then any condition addressed to him in 



THE WILL. 



309 



his capacity of man, would relate exclusively to the choosing 
principle, or the effect-producing principle, or the sub-cause. 
However we may characterize man, we must always regard 
him as a responsible principle, as a responsible sub-cause ; 
for revelation declares him to be upon probation. Hence, 
wherever we find the responsible principle, we find the man. 

Man has will, and also mind and power. He wills or 
chooses, and also thinks and causes. They are all three 
distinct phenomena. If mind possesses power and will, mind 
is man. If will possesses power and mind, will is man. 
If power possesses mind and will, power is man. By power 
we mean a cause : a limited cause producing limited effects. 

Let us test the question by reference to the causing princi- 
ple in man. The mind and the will are both distinct from 
the power of man. The mind thinks, the will chooses, and 
the power produces the effects. Hence power is a distinct 
faculty from will and mind. Now it is generally admitted 
that man does not consist in power, and as power is a dis- 
tinct quality from mind and will, whichever of the two puts 
power into exercise — whichever of the two has a nearer rela- 
tion to and authority over power, must be the master princi- 
ple, and the master principle must be man. What then 
causes power to produce an effect ? Why, evidently the 
choosing principle. Then the choosing principle must be 
man. It is from the love of a thing that power produces an 
action. The principle then in power is love : the principle 
that puts power into motion is will. Love is the cause of 
choosing, and hence God being love, man must be a choosing 
principle, governed by love. 

If revelation be the guide of our opinions, we are to believe 
that man is to be brought to judgment. And this judgment 
is to be for the deeds done in the body. Now, undoubtedly, 
the principle that causes deeds, is the principle to be judged. 
Deeds are the test of the goodness or badness of the principle 



310 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



that is to be judged. A principle under a disposition that 
causes murder, is more wicked than the one that merely takes 
the name of the Lord in vain. The man that steals, is more 
wicked than he who thinks more highly of himself than he 
ought to think. The adulterer is a more wicked man than 
he who is not easy to be entreated. Deeds are the tests of 
wickedness, and they are also the tests of goodness. The 
man who devotes his life to useful and benevolent purposes, 
is a better man than he who, at the close of life, gives charity 
to a poor neighbor. The goodness of that causing prin- 
ciple that devotes years to kind and charitable deeds, is a 
better causing principle than that that performs but a few. 
The causing principle is to be judged according to the deeds 
done in the body. We must not confound the judgment 
with salvation. There is a momentous difference between 
salvation and judgment, because there are many mansions in 
my father's house.* We are not saved according to the 
deeds done in the body. We are saved by grace, according 
to the terms of a divine contract. But the saved are differ- 
ently rewarded, or judged. Now, if man is the principle that 
is to be judged according to the deeds done in the body, cer- 
tainly man must be the principle that causes deeds. Man 
must be the cause of action. What is it that causes the 
limited power conferred upon man to bring forth actions or 
deeds ? Evidently the will. Then the will must be man, and 
the will must be characterized by the qualities of mind and 
power, and must possess a house of clay, and organs of that 
house, called sight, and hearing, and feeling, and smelling, 
and tasting. Hence it is the will that thinks, that acts, that 
sees, that hears, that feels, that smells, that tastes, and that 
lives in a house fabricated for him, or it, out of clay. 

Mr. Edwards says, that the " will is that power by which 

* Christ told Pilate, "He that delivered me to thee hath the greater 
Bin." 



THE WILL. 



311 



the soul chooses any thing :" dividing the soul into two 
faculties — i. <?., " the one that is capable of perception and 
speculation, or by which it discerns, and views, and judges 
of things which is called the understanding ; and the other- 
faculty, that by which the soul does not merely perceive and 
view things, but is in some way inclined to them, or is dis- 
inclined or averse from them." According to this absurd 
reasoning the soul has two faculties, mind and will. The 
mind perceives and speculates, and the will also perceives, and 
speculates, and chooses. This makes a strange compound of 
the soul. If the will has perceptive powers, the mind must 
be supererogatory. 

Mr. Edwards says, the will is the " mind drawing a con- 
clusion^ or coming to a choice between two or more things 
proposed." 

u God," according to this writer, ''has endued the soul 
with two faculties." That is to say, the will is the determin- 
ing power or faculty of the soul, and the mind the deliber- 
ating faculty of the soul ! That is to say, yet farther, that 
the soul is thus qualified or endowed. But this division not 
suiting this theory, he imparts to the will the power of " per- 
ceiving and viewing things " in addition to the perceiving 
and viewing quality of the mind. One would suppose thai, 
having divided the soul into faculties, he would have ab- 
stained from the grossly unphilosophical reasoning of attrib- 
uting the phenomena of the faculties to any other cause 
than the soul itself. He divides the soul into deliberating 
and choosing faculties, and makes the deliberating faculty do 
the office of deliberation, away from the controlment or in- 
fluence of the soul, and makes the faculty of volition do the 
office of independent choosing, away from the controlment of 
the soul. After ditnding the soul into two faculties, or phe- 
nomena, or characteristics, then, instead of making the soul 
act through faculties, and develop phenomena, he decapitates 



312 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



the soul, and sets the will and the understanding upon the 
vacated seat of sovereignty that the soul should occupy, and 
makes them the imperial potentates of distinct empires. 
This is a very common error with metaphysical writers. 
They divide the soul into two departments, and then at once 
disregard the soul, and work away at the two faculties, as 
though they were original and independent causes, and not 
characteristics or phenomena of a one cause. If the soul has 
understanding, and understanding thinks, it is the soul that 
thinks zvith the understanding, and not the understanding. If 
the soul has a choosing capacity, it is not the choosing capacity 
that chooses, but the soul. If a man has a mouth that eats, 
and eyes that see, it is not the mouth that eats, nor is it the 
eyes that see, but the man. The man eats with his mouth, 
and sees with his eyes. So with the mind. It is man that 
has mind. 

Dr. Reid remarks that the " effluvia of bodies drawn into 
the nostrils with the breath are the medium of smell ; the 
undulations of the air are the medium of hearing ; and the 
rays of light, passing from visible objects to the eye, are the 
medium of sight. We see no object unless rays of light 
come from it to the eye. We hear not the sound of any 
body, unless the vibrations of some elastic medium, occa- 
sioned by the tremulous motion of the sounding body, reach 
the ear. We perceive no smell, unless the effluvia of the 
smelling ? [smelled] body enter into the nostrils. We perceive 
no taste, unless the sapid body be applied to the tongue, or 
some part of the organ of taste. Nor do we perceive any 
tangible quality of a body, unless it touch the hands, or some 
part of the body." But we here ask a question that was 
never dreamed of in Mr. Reid's philosophy — Who is it that 
smells by organs of smelling, that hears by the undulations of 
air, that sees by the rays of light passing from visible objects 
to the eye, and smells by the effluvia of bodies drawn into 



THE YvILL. 



313 



the nostrils ? The question could not have been answered in 
the Scotchman's age. It is man, or the soul, or the will. It 
is the embodied spirit that is to be disembodied. It is that 
thing that is sown in a natural body, and that is raised in a 
spiritual body : that is sown in corruption, and that is raised 
in incorruption ; it is that first Adam made a soul, that is 
raised by the second Adam, who quickens it : it is the soul, 
the spirit, the will, the man, the voluntary choosing principle, 
familiarly called man. 

Mr. Edwards says, " The affections are not essentially dif- 
ferent from the will, nor do they differ from the mere actings 
of the will, and inclinations of the soul, but only in the live- 
liness and sensibleness of the exercise. I humbly conceive 
the affections of the soul are not properly distinguishable 
from the will as though they were two faculties." 

Locke is convinced that the will is a " power in the mind 
to direct the operative faculties of a man to motion or rest." 
That is to say, the will is a power of the mind, and the 
mind is a quality, a faculty of the man, and the will directs 
the operative qualities for the man! A more startling 
theory is not to be found in the wide range of metaphysical 
philosophy. If the will be a power of the mind (and mind 
must have will if the mind has a faculty called the will), it is 
the mind acting by the will-faculty that directs the operative 
faculties ! This lets man out of the difficulty of probation. 
He says, farther, " We find in ourselves a power to begin or 
forbear, continue or end several actions of our minds and 
motions of our bodies barely by a thought or preference of the 
mind. A power in any agent to do or forbear any particu- 
lar action, according to the determination or thought of the 
mind. The power of the mind to determine its thoughts to 
the producing, continuing, or stopping any action as far as it 
depends on us. We must remember that volition, or willing, 
is an act of the mind whereby, barely by a thought, the 
14 



314 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



mind endeavors to give rise, continuation, or stop to any 
action, which it takes to be in its power." 

Can the reader tell why Mr. Locke says, " We find in our- 
selves a power to begin or forbear actions V What can he 
mean by a power found within us ? If there be any power 
in us, is it not our power, or is it somebody else's power ? 
And if it be our power, then it is ourselves. If it be ourselves, 
his language is too inaccurate for so complex a question. He 
should have said, to preserve his consistency, " We begin or 
forbear, continue or end several actions of our minds, by a 
thought." And this would be nonsense. He says, " A 
power in any agent to do or forbear any particular action, 
according to the determination or thought of the mind," must 
exist in the agent. If this power exists in the agent, to do 
or forbear, it is the agent that exerts this power, and he can- 
not be determined by a thought. This would destroy all 
agency of the agent. It is not this power that exerts the 
agent. Does the mind put man in motion, or does man put 
mind in motion ? If man puts mind in motion, then Mr. 
Locke is wrong, and it is man that puts the intellectual facul- 
ties to work. But what would Mr. Locke do with the cause 
of action in brutes ? It may be said of the horse, that he 
finds in himself a u power to begin or forbear, continue or end 

actions or motions of the body." Here is a power in 

an agent to begin or forbear, continue or end actions or mo- 
tions, and does he do it by a thought or preference of the 
mind ? The one is just as rational philosophy as the other ; 
because the horse has preferences, comes to a determination, 
perceives, judges. Will Mr. Locke's disciples answer this 
question ? What is the power in the horse that he finds in 
him, putting his operative faculties into action ? It is pre- 
cisely the same power that man finds in himself, and that is 
the power of God. God is the only and sole cause of motion. 
He has communicated a cause to the horse, limited to certain 



THE WILL. 



315 



offices and devoid of reason ; but in the place of reason, en- 
dowed with instinct. Instinct supplies the place of reason. 
Is it instinct that guides the cause of motion in a horse ? 
Certainly it is. It regulates motion by this law of nature. 
Then reason in man does not cause motion, it only regulates 
it according as the will chooses reasons. God reasons for the 
horse, but he has allowed man to reason for himself. We say 
man, we purposely avoid saying mind. The plain truth is, 
man or the will regulates motion or actions by preferred 
motives excited by reasons satisfactory to the will. God is 
the cause of action in man. Man, therefore, is a limited or 
created cause of action, permitted to act in a certain sphere, 
according to such reasons as it prefers, and this preference 
causes action. This is the principle placed upon probation. 
Now, the condition of the Christian system is not a cause un- 
til it is chosen. It is not a cause properly, because it cannot 
produce an effect or an action — has no operative powers ; but 
it is a motive, because God has granted to it a certain vitality 
of action, so that the man that complies with it, thereby 
chooses it, and has a borrowed strength. The man that 
complies with it, can perform actions in consequence of the 
motive power of the condition, that he could not perform 
without it. Hence it is plain that it is the will that is affect- 
ed by the motive power of the condition of grace. The will 
is invigorated, so that by the aid of the borrowed motive 
power of the performed chosen condition, it can discharge 
religious functions with a degree of voluntary action, it could 
not otherwise discharge. That the mind is not the quality 
that determines, we need no plainer proof than that brutes 
determine, and that men without mind determine. It is the 
will that determines ; it is the will that thinks ; it is the 
will that hears ; it is the will that loves ; it is the will that 
feels ; it is the will that mourns ; it is the will that laughs ; it 
is the will that sees : and it is the will that considers, judges, 



316 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



concludes ; and the will is the soul, and the soul is man, and 
man is choice ; and man is finite God, or good, or love, when 
he chooses good, or God, or love. Man is a sub-cause : that 
cause must be moved by the one cause, and must partake of 
the nature of the one cause. This one cause being infinite 
love, man must be finite love when in union with God. M. 
Cousin, of the French school, true to his infidel instincts, con- 
siders the will as its own cause. " The first act of which we 
are conscious," says he, " is the will, and the will is the root 
of consciousness ; the first start of causing is voluntary, and 
the element of succession is volition." Notwithstanding his 
infidel tendency, he has the following surprisingly astute re- 
mark — " It is the volition, then, attested by consciousness, 
that brings to us the conviction of our existence or identity, 
and it is the continuity of the volition, viewed as memory, 
that furnishes the proof of identity." 

What is it that distinguishes primarily the causing prin- 
ciple in man from God ? The distinction is this. God does 
not act from motive, and man does. God is love, and man 
is will. God is the motive, and man is the choosing prin- 
ciple. God is not a choosing principle, nor does he act from 
will, because they imply choice. God never chooses, because 
he is the original cause of effects — and the idea of choosing, 
implies two motives, whereas God is the only motive. Man is 
will, and chooses. What does he choose ? He chooses love ; or 
in other words, he chooses motive. There is no distinction 
between motive and love. Whoever acts from motive, acts 
from love, and vice versa. And whoever acts from either, acts 
from God, and hence it is God that acts in the shape of mo- 
tive, for God is love. God imparts to a sinner a motive when 
he sins ; that is to say, God acts evil acts for a sinner who 
desires to act evil acts. God does these, in order to have free 
voluntary love from other men. God does not act evil acts for 
a sinner because he takes any pleasure in evil actions, but be- 



THE WILL. 



317 



cause he takes pleasure in voluntary love, and it is plain no 
man could render voluntary love, unless God were to enable 
hini to perform evil actions if he chooses to perform them. 
If it were not for the ability to do the reverse of good actions, 
good actions would be mechanical : they could not be volun- 
tary. God causes, but man chooses. Hence God is mani- 
fested in two causes — the cause of evil actions, and the cause 
of good actions. Man, upon the contrary, being a created 
being, is not a causing principle by original ability, because 
were he such, God would not be God, or would be less than 
God. Whereas he is a choosing principle, and loves, and acts 
from love — love, implying God, or motive, or the causing 
principle. Man acts always from a derived power. He acts 
by the will of God, but he does not choose by the will of God, 
since in this respect he is free, because God cannot choose. 
Man cannot choose evil by the will of God, because God is love. 
He acts by the will of God, but chooses freely or voluntarily, 
since to choose motives is the freedom of the being. Why 
does a drunkard drink more liquor than a sober man ? Be- 
cause he loves it the more. The same answer applies to every 
other exhibition of sinful indulgence. And it is the same 
with respect to good actions. It is hence not said with pre- 
cise philosophical accuracy, that the sin of an action is the 
motive of an action, since God is the motive of every action ; 
but it is rather proper to say, that the sin of every evil action 
is the choice of the motive. The reader must not confound 
the evil and the sin of an action. God cannot sin, because 
he never chooses. Choice is an originated motive, whereas 
God is unoriginated. There is nothing for him to choose, 
since he is the original principle of love ; and as love acts 
from love, or rather love acts by original impulse. He is infi- 
nite love, and when he acts it is infinite love in action, not by 
collateral, but by original impulse. He cannot choose him- 
self, and there is nothing else for him to choose. A motivo 



318 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



necessarily includes the idea of something antecedent to the 
choice. Hence the true philosophy and the true theology is, 
that man is will, and acts from love; and God is love, and 
acts from love, impulsively or originally. It is the same 
thing to say, man acts from the power of God. But he does 
not choose from the power of God, because God does not con- 
sist in such a power. Hence man, or the will, is necessarily 
free. It cannot be otherwise than free. It cannot be con- 
ceived of in any other sense. Imagine it not free, and you 
imagine a plain absurdity, contradiction, nonsense. Choice 
must be free, to be choice. It is not choice if it is not free. 
When you make choice, you make a coequal freedom. The 
proper and only definition of choice is freedom. It cannot 
be otherwise defined ; and if you restrict the choice, you re- 
strict pro tanto the freedom. God himself can only restrict 
the choice, by restricting the freedom. If he wished to con- 
trol the choice, he would be under a necessity to control, limit, 
or destroy the freedom. He could reach the choice in no other 
way, unless he were to destroy or annihilate it. "Whenever 
God constitutes a choosing principle, he puts it out of his 
hands to control the choice, without destroying the principle 
or the freedom. Of course God has all power, and can at any 
moment check human freedom, — but what God cannot do is, 
that he cannot make a choosing principle and control the 
choice at the same time. It would be precisely analogous to 
making two mountains without any valley, or to making a 
river of running water out of solid rock. God cannot do two 
precisely contradictory things. He cannot make rock water, 
at the same precise moment of time. And he cannot make 
choice and control it, at the same precise moment of time. 
Choice and freedom are interchangeable terms. 

When Mr. Locke says, that " the faculty of the will is that 
power or principle of the mind, by which it is capable of choos- 
ing" he confounds man with his faculties. Will cannot be 



THE WILL. 



319 



a faculty of the raind, for in that event, if we were to destroy 
the will, we would destroy the faculty. "Will is independent 
of mind, for the reason that mind may be destroyed and will 
remains. Mind may go out of existence, and yet will would 
remain. Now, it is absurd to say that we can have mind, 
and yet have the will destroyed. Who ever heard of any 
other than a willing being, having the power of thought I He 
must have will, in order to be disposed to think. Mind is a 
faculty of will ; or in other words, man thinks, — but then, man 
is a choosing principle ; or in other words, man is choice or 
will. This choosing principle, this choice, this will, has facul- 
ties. It can think, it can see, it can smell, it can taste, it can 
perform actions, by choosing to perform them. This makes 
Dr. Brown's definition of an action a correct one. When we 
behold an action, we see human choice manifested, and we 
see God manifested. Man choosing motive, and motive 
causing. The " act of the volition is not a determination," as 
Mr. Locke thinks ; but the act is the result of the choice of 
motive. Will and choice are synonymous terms. Fallen man 
is a fallen choice. A fallen choice, chooses evil necessarily. 

If volition be a faculty of the mind, and mind the man, 
possessing a faculty called will, as Mr. Locke's theory fixes it, 
then a man may act in opposition to himself. Whenever a 
man acts in opposition to his mind, if it is mind that consti- 
tutes the man, most undoubtedly he acts in opposition to 
himself. Is not this an absurd, yet legitimate consequence of 
Mr. Locke's doctrine ? If we endow man with faculties, the 
man must be distinct from his faculties. This Mr. Locke re- 
fuses to allow. 

A man may be a very good and a very honest man, but 
he certainly is a dishonest reasoner, if he does not allow the 
logical consequences of his doctrine. This Mr. Locke and his 
school refuse to do. Xecessarians refuse to allow the logical 
consequences of their doctrines. 



320 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



Professor Tappan, of the Cousin school, brings the infidel 
point out boldly. He says, " The will is first cause itself. 
Acts of the will neither require nor admit of antecedent causes 
to explain their action. . . . Nothing moves it — it is cause per 
se." 

Thus is the supreme and only cause quietly dethroned by 
the daring presumptions of metaphysical subtility. 

Bielfield says, " That the understanding examines and pre- 
sents all objects to the will, and according as that presents 
them, this accepts or rejects, for the will has not absolutely 
any power of examining and judging ; its sole quality is that 
of determining." Hume says, " By the will I mean nothing 
but the internal power we feel and are conscious of, when we 
knowingly give rise to any new motion of the body, or new 
perception of the mind." We cannot perceive the utility of 
all this circumlocution. Would it not be as well to say, that 
the will knowingly gives rise to new motions of the body, or 
new perceptions of the mind, exercising the same sovereignty 
over the one or^an as the other ? 

Malebranche contends that the will reasons, and the mind 
perceives. 

The Greeks have the notion that there are two wills in man, 
the one spiritual, and the other material. 

Dr. Samuel Clark, thinks the " last dictate of the under- 
standing is not different from the will ;" and Dr. Adam Clarke, 
that the will " discerns and approves." All necessarians say, 
that the will follows the mind, when it pronounces for the most 
agreeable. In this school are to be found all the Doctors of 
Phrenology. 

Gall maintains the decision resulting from comparing^, 
weighing, and judging, is the will, and Spurzheim, that the 
" will is the decision of the understanding." 

Dr. Adam Clarke, commenting upon the words of St. 
Paul, in Romans, vii. 18, — " For to will is present with me, 



THE WILL. 



321 



but how to perform that which is good, I find not ; for the 
good that I would, I do not, and the evil which I would not, 
that I do," — says, " there has been a strange clamor raised 
up against this faculty of the soul, as if the very essence of 
evil dwelt in it ; whereas the apostle shows throughout this 
chapter, that the will was regularly on God's side while 
every other faculty appears to have been in hostility to him." 
"It is not the will that leads men astray, but the corrupt 

passions which oppose and oppress the will The will, 

this almost only friend of God in the human soul, has been 
slandered as God's worst enemy." If the view we have 
taken of the will be true, as the only cause of action, and 
that the passions are but phenomena or manifestations of the 
will, these comments will appear to be particularly preposter- 
ous. If the will be man, then, according to Dr. Clarke, man 
has been slandered as God's worst enemy, and instead of 
beino- his enemv is his friend. Then the will has never fallen, 
and the Christian system is a farrago. 

The apostle simply means to affirm what all history 
teaches, and all human observation confirms — that all men 
desire God. It is not possible for them to desire any thing- 
else, because love is the only cause of action. God is love, 
and love is the perfection of happiness, and all men that 
desire happiness desire God. The only difficulty is, they 
seek it in the creature, in the created thing, in the evil thing 
created for that purpose. The general desire and the natural 
desire for God is only misdirected. The only distinction 
between the Christian and the man of the world is, that the 
one directs his desire or his love properly, and the other 
does not. But they both desire the same thing, or same one 
essence. But, as we have said, there is an immense gulf 
between desiring 1 and choosing. Man does not seek evil for 
evil's sake. He seeks it and chooses it because he expects to 
find God or good in it. Hence the origin of sin is the love of 

14* 



322 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



evil. He misdirects his operative powers. God is the only 
good, the only safety, the only happiness, the only grace, the 
only solace for the will. This is what man desires ; not what 
he loves, or wills, or is able to love or will by any self-deter- 
mining power. But in the fall the power to choose God 
was lost. Hence there is wanting in the human will the 
motive to choose. Can man choose without a motive ? Can 
he will independently ? We had just as well ask, is he God ? 
Can he originate a cause of action ? If he can, then the fall 
could not have occurred, and he can find good without God's 
assistance, or without a dispensation of motives. The will of 
man, having lost the power, or the cause, or the motive, 
whereby to choose God, or good, or happiness, seeks, and 
vainly and continually seeks, in the created thing for it, by 
natural powers. Hence the inspired writer says, in entire 
consistency with the principles of metaphysical philosophy, 
that we are not independent actors; that "it is no more I 
that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me," — the love of sin 
being the cause — the love of evil dwelling in us ; that to 
" will is present ;" i. e., we naturally, or independently desire, 
but how to perform we find not in us : for there is a law 
or a cause in us naturally, that when we would do good, evil, 
or the love of evil, or the cause of evil, is present with us, 
so that we do not do what we desire to do, and what we 
despise, that we do. Now, what is the remedy ? Why 
through Christ Jesus ; or through the cause or motive found 
in the Christian system. God has supplied in the Chris- 
tian system the remedy for the infirm will, by imparting 
a motive to every command. The Christian obtains an 
invigorated will by means of the Christian system ; that is 
to say, he has an imparted motive in virtue of the command 
or dispensation. 

By the use of the Christian system, and by the cause 
found in it, the Christian is just the opposite of the party 



THE WILL. 



323 



mentioned by the apostle. For he can say, there chvelleth in 
my flesh a good thing ; to will is present with me, and I find 
a power or motive to perform — the " hoiu" mentioned by the 
apostle — (the religion of Christ giving this power), for the good 
that I would, I do, by that power, and the evil I would not, 
I do not, for I delight in the law of God after the inner man ; 
I am conqueror and more than conqueror, through him that 
loved me (that is, by means of his system with its gracious 
condition), and who gave himself for me. Who shall separate 
us from the love of Christ ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or 
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword ?" no ; 
" neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
powers, nor things present, nor tilings to come, nor height, nor 
depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us 
from the love of God" (meaning grace of God), " which is 
in Christ Jesus our Lord." This results from having received 
the benefit of the "how" mentioned by the apostle, which 
means Christ's dispensation, with its condition. 

Hence, there is safety or salvation in this love. This 
love is the motive power of the Christian, and as long as he 
chooses this motive power he cannot be separated from it, 
and being an active power, or a motive possessed of divine 
energy, it brings forth proper fruit to the glory of God, but 
not to the salvation of man, because the possession of this 
motive is salvation or safety itself. The human will is on 
God's side when a sinner becomes a Christian, but until he 
does become a Christian, his will is God's enemy, so to 
speak : that is, prefers the love of evil ; and this love carries 
him into sinful actions. Now, when Dr. Clarke asserts that 
the principle of rebellion dwells in "sensual appetites" he 
asserts a contradiction, for sensual appetites are the will's 
preferences, ripened into faculties or habits, and the princi- 
ple of rebellion dwells in the preference of the will. 

Dr. Winans, one of the most estimable and acute of living 



324 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



men, in commenting upon this theology, declares, in opposi- 
tion to the doctrine that the will discerns and approves, that 
Dr. Clarke never could have supported his theory that the 
will is God's friend, unless he had conferred discerning and 
approving faculties upon it, because it requires discernment 
and approbation to constitute friendship. 

He says that Dr. Clarke has ascribed to the will " func- 
tions that are unknown, we think, to mental philosophy." 
He says it " discerns and approves." " Who, before Dr. Clarke, 
ever reckoned the will among the perceptive faculties, or 
invested it with the attributes of the judgment, whose office 
it has always been considered to approve and to condemn ?" 

He says, " It were wholly superfluous to prove that men 
act upon their volitions whether they act in accordance with 
or in opposition to the laws of rectitude, the dictates of pru- 
dence, and the decisions of their own judgments or not." 
He says, " there never was a single instance of volition in 
opposition to desire." 

Edwards, Locke, Hume, Hobbes, and the majority of 
ethical writers, ascribe discernment to the will. President 
Edwards says that the will " does not merely perceive and 
view things, but is in some way inclined with respect to the 
things it views and consider sP 

The difficulty upon this subject arises from assigning func- 
tions to functions, faculties to faculties, characteristics- to 
characteristics. The soul is characterized, but you cannot 
subdivide these characteristics, and assign any original power 
to the subdivided faculties. To say that men act upon their 
volitions, whether they act wisely or otherwise, is to employ 
confused language. When we say men act upon their voli- 
tions, we merely affirm that volition acts from volition. The 
expression is prolonged unphilosophically, and breeds confu- 
sion. It is proper to say, that man or that volition acts 
wisely or unwisely, reluctantly or otherwise. What can 



THE WELL. 



325 



be meant by the philosophy that " there never was a single 
instance of volition in opposition to desire ?" Are we to 
infer that men never act reluctantly ? Are we to infer 
that men never do a thing they exert themselves to the very 
utmost not to do ? or do a thing they would prefer not to 
do ? Are there no such actions as actions of failure ? Do 
not men will to do unpleasant things ? " The will," says Dr. 
Winans, " is that faculty of the mind that determines the 
actions of free agents." 

If this be so, free agents are determined by a faculty that 
does not discern and does not approve ! If the volition de- 
termines free agents, free agents do not determine themselves. 
Hence the agents are not responsible, but the volition. The 
principle that causes action must be responsible, and yet this 
principle has neither discernment nor approbation ! Free 
agents are determined to action by a cause that has no 
discernment ! This logic strips free agency of all rational 
freedom and all responsibility, and, although mind may have 
intelligence, this intelligence not causing the action has 
neither lot nor part in it. There must be a fallacy in any 
system that leads to these surprising results. 

The morality, founded upon the theory, is equally defective. 

It is affirmed that " no moral character belongs to any 
action, whether good or bad, any farther than it is the result 
of volition on the part of the actor." Then the morality of 
an action is disconnected from the word of God, and affixed 
to the human will. All evil actions are evil by whomsoever 
committed, and, although the evil acts of madmen are not 
sinful in them, the acts are evil, since God fixes the mora] 
code ; i. e., fixes the evil actions. Murder is an evil action 
by whomsoever committed, because it is a prohibited action. 
But a man without mind may commit murder without sm, 
but his deficiency does not abrogate a statute of God, but 
only works his exemption from the sin of it. 



326 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



The morality of an action is not determinable by human 
volition. The standard is too variable. The sin of an action 
may be determined by the condition of the motive that caused 
it, but this is different from the source of morality. 

It is to undermine the basis of morality to declare that 
" the moral character of every action is determined by the 
whole scope of the volition which prompted it, and by 
nothing else." If this were so, in order to establish a system 
of morality we would have to inquire into the condition of 
the human volition or the whole scope of the human volition. 
It is declared that " the law of God is the rule of the voli- 
tion, not only with regard to the action itself, but also with 
regard to the purposes of the action." Then it is in apposi- 
tion to this to affirm that the moral character of an action is 
determined by the volition. It cannot be determined by the 
volition and by the law also. There cannot be two standards 
of morality. This distinction brings a very important point 
into view : the difference between moral evil and sin, and 
between moral good and good actions. If " no action is or 
can be justly considered either right or wrong, in a moral 
sense, which does not result from the unrestrained volition of 
the agent by whom such action is performed," where are we 
to find a code of morality ? It runs us into Bentham's theory, 
or Mandeville's, or Hume's. 

In this theory of the will, we are given to understand that 
the will is not possessed of any power of discernment or appro- 
bation — such a thing is unheard of in mental philosophy : 
and yet " no moral action can be performed without its con- 
currence, however clamorously appetite and passion may urge 
it ; and f even though a blinded understanding and a per- 
verted judgment may lend the authority of their high offices 
to persuade to the performance of an evil action, it will not, 
it cannot be performed, unless the will shall so determine." 
This is certainly strange conduct for a faculty void of the 



THE WILL. 



327 



power of discernment or approbation. But how are we to 
have " a blinded understanding and a perverted judgment," 
if the " influence of the fall is not, in Scripture, described as 
consisting in the destruction of any faculty of the soul, or in 
any impairment of their vigor, but in their moral perversion ?" 
The will cannot have been perverted in the fall, because it 
cannot discern or approve ! The mind cannot have been 
perverted, because it cannot produce an action without the 
concurrence of the will, however it may " persuade to the 
performance of an evil action !" "We are brought, by this 
singular logic, to perceive the necessity of reconciling the laws 
of the Christian system with those of metaphysical philosophy. 

Mr. Locke says, " 'Tis not a fault, but a perfection of our 
nature, to desire, will, and act, according to the result of a 
fair examination. This is so far from being a restraint or 
diminution of freedom, that it is the very improvement and 
benefit of it. It is not an abridgment of it, it is the end and 
use of our liberty, and the farther we are removed from such 
a determination, the nearer we are to misery and slavery. 
A perfect indifference in the mind, not determined by the 
last judgment of the good or evil that is thought to attend 
its choice, would be so far from being an advantage and ex- 
cellence of any intellectual nature, that it would be as great 
an imperfection as the want of indifferency to act or not to 
act till determined by the will, would be an imperfection on 
the other side. It is as much a perfection that desire, or the 
power of preferring, should be determined by good, as that 
the power of acting should be determined by the will, and 
the certainer such determination the greater the perfection. 
Nay, were we determined by any thing but the last determina- 
tion of our own minds, judging of the good or evil of an 
action, we were not free ; the very end of our freedom being 
that we might attain the good we choose, and therefore every 
man is brought under a necessity by his constitution, as an 



328 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



intelligent being, to be determined in willing, by bis own 
tbought and judgment, wbat is best for bim to do, else be 
would be under tbe determination of some otber tban bimself, 
wbicb is want of liberty. 

" And to deny that a man's will in every determination fol- 
lows bis own judgment, is to say that man wills and acts for 
an end he would not have, at tbe same time he wills and 
acts for it. For if he prefers it in his present thoughts before 
any other, it is plain he then thinks better of it, and would 
have it before any other, unless he can have and not have it, 
will and not will it, at the same time — a contradiction too 
manifest to be admitted. If to break loose from the conduct 
of reason, and to want that restraint of examination and 
judgment that keeps us from doing or choosing the worse-be 
liberty, madmen and fools are the only free men. Yet I 
think nobody would choose to be mad for the sake of such 
liberty, but he that is mad already." 

There can be no doubt that men act from the last deter 
ruination or chosen reason, and if they determine to act from 
any thing but the last determination of their minds, judging 
of the good or evil of any action, they could not be free. 
Freedom consists in acting from the last choice of the will, 
whether that choice be wise or unwise. The only difficulty 
upon this extremely complex subject arises from not properly 
distinguishing between a motive and a reason. This is what 
Mr. Locke fails to do. Men never act without a motive, but 
they may act either in accordance with a true or a false rea- 
son, a good or a bad reason, a sound or a fallacious reason. 

In matters connected with religion, or the choice of God, 
it is a characteristic of man that he acts from a reason that 
he is convinced is altogether unwise. The verdict rendered 
by every man who has watched his conduct and his under- 
standing is, that he often reprobates the claims of a truth, or 
a duty connected with the worship of God, which his under- 



THE WILL. 



329 



standing has embraced, and whose obligation his judgment 
fully affirms. 

This melancholy spectacle arises from the fact that men 
act from motives, and not from reason. 

We will find no complexity upon the subject when we 
remember that man is a limited agent, clothed by his Creator 
with a power of acting from but one of two motives, and 
that his acts are not under his determination. The man who 
is under the government of a cause chosen, is necessitated 
by that cause to perform such actions as are connected as 
effects with the cause he has chosen. Thus the man who 
prefers evil to good, is under the government of this preference, 
and whenever an occasion presents itself in the current of his 
life, in which he is enabled to produce an action, he acts evil, 
because the reason selected for the act is in harmony with the 
motive that sways him. And so also upon the other hand, 
the man who prefers good to evil, or who loves God, is under 
the government of this cause, rendered vital with energy to 
produce actions, and whenever an occasion presents itself in 
which he is enabled to act, or is called upon to act in the 
providence of God, he acts good, or performs good actions, 
because the reason, or inducement, or temj)tation calling for 
the action, is in harmony with the chosen motive that sways 
him — the love of good. Hence men commit good and bad 
actions in precise proportion to their love or choice of good 
or evil. 

All inducements are not motives : inducements are tempta- 
tions ; temptations are good or bad reasons. This probation- 
ary life is a life of necessary temptations each way. Remove 
temptations and life would cease to be probationary. There 
were necessary temptations in Adam's primeval trial. Th.e 
attractiveness of sin, and the attractiveness of good, are dis- 
tributed by God in order to constitute a probationary life, and 
as it has been done by him, we are to conclude that the 



330 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



distribution is equal, and that the motive of love of good 
can resist the attractiveness of evil sufficiently to bring 
about in the end of the trial a perfect character. It is the 
equal attraction of good and evil that equalizes the experi- 
ment of moral probation with men of unequal temperament. 
A strong will, when it receives an oblique tendency, is more 
impetuous in the course of vice than one of a milder nature, 
but then it is equally strong wdien it takes the other direc- 
tion. Hence, however unequal may be the natural disposi- 
tions of men, the trial is equal if the attractions are equal, for 
if one has a strong, and another a weak will, the trial as re- 
spects them both is entirely equal. The man of weak will 
can have no ground of complaint against the fairness of the 
trial as compared with him of strong will, for if the latter has 
a strong will for, he has one equally strong against. But if 
the mind be the man, then any trial addressed to the mind 
would be very unequal, since a strong mind has very superior 
advantages in all intellectual phenomena. Certainly it is the 
perfection of our nature to act according to the result of a fair 
examination ; and to act from the last determination arrived 
at in the examination, is the proof of our uninterrupted free- 
dom. None but foolish people can act from any other in- 
ducement than the one last preferred, and it is doubtful 
whether people ever get to be foolish enough even to do that. 
A madman cannot act from indifference or neutrality. But 
we avoid all difficulty upon the subject by adhering to the 
cardinal principles of Revelation, that God is the one infinite 
cause of all things. And unless God be reason, or an induce- 
ment or a temptation, a reason, or an inducement or a temp- 
tation can never be a motive or a cause. A sinner can never 
say he is moved to a sinful action by the motive of a falla- 
cious reason, or an unsound reason, or by the attractiveness 
of forbidden things. Men who say they are moved to sin 
because sin is the better reason, or because they do not credit 



THE WILL. 



331 



the divine authenticity of the Christian revelation, assert what 
is philosophically untrue. Men are very much inclined to 
throw the blame of evil lives upon an assumed want of belief 
in the Christian system, which is no motive, but a reason, 
though fallacious ; but their conduct would be unchanged, 
were they made to believe it by testimony they could not 
dispute unless they were to choose the motive of good, since 
men cannot act without motive, and the motive of love of 
God is the only motive endowed by God with sufficient energy 
to produce a change of life. 

We will proceed to illustrate these principles by an ex- 
amination of the instance given by Christ, of the love of 
God producing the love of our neighbor. " Master," said a 
lawyer to Christ, " what shall I do to inherit eternal life 3" 
He said unto him, " What is written in the law ? how readest 
thou '?" And he answering, said, " Thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with 
all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as 
thyself." The lawyer was rather verbose, for all he said is 
comprised in love to God and man. And the Saviour said 
unto him, " Thou hast answered right ; do this and thou shalt 
live." And the lawyer inquired, " Who is my neighbor ?" It 
was in reply to this question, that our Saviour proceeded to 
illustrate the character of the motive of the love of God in its 
subordinate consequences. He gives a practical treatise upon 
the philosophy of love as a motive power giving life. 

" A certain man," says Jesus to the lawyer, " went down 
from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which 
stripped him of raiment, and wounded him, and departed, 
leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a 
certain priest that way, and when he saw him, he passed on 
the other side. But a certain Samaritan came where he was, 
and when he saw him he had compassion on him, and went 
to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, 



332 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



and sat hirn on his own beast, and brought him to an inn 
and took care of him." Now, the question arises, in con- 
nection with the influence of motive upon human conduct, 
what principle of action influenced the operative powers of 
the priest, and what those of the Samaritan ? Here we be- 
hold a different line of conduct upon the part of two persons 
with regard to the same distressed individual. 

Man is the creature of motive. What motive operated 
upon the priest ? Now, when the priest saw a man in dis- 
tress, he saw an occasion to test his faith. This distressed 
creature was God's, and his fellow-creature. Now, love of 
God is the motive that produces actions in harmony with the 
motive ; and if the priest had loved God, or desired to procure 
the love of God, he would have loved his creature. This is 
a law of causation. Love of God produces love to God's 
creature, because he is God's creature from the necessity of 
the case. Love to man is not a voluntary feeling, for if it 
were, wicked men might love man — the priest might have 
then acted differently. Love to man is a consequence — a 
necessary effect — of love of God. This is so because the love 
of God is the only motive power capable of producing good 
actions, and it produces kind acts to man, as God's creature. 

Love of God is the cause, and the desire of the love of God 
is the condition of benevolent actions acceptable to God. 
Clear distinctions are necessary in all metaphysical investiga- 
tions. Love of God, and the desire of the love of God, mean 
different motives. Love of God is the motive of God himself 
in man, since God is love ; the desire of the love of God is 
the preference for God manifested in a creature by his free vo- 
lition. We are to remember, that the love of God is a circu- 
itous mode of speech, since God is love essentially. Whoev- 
er, then, has the love of God, has God ; and whoever acts 
from the love of God, acts from God himself. Now, man 
cannot act from the love of God, unless God's will be im- 



THE WILL. 



333 



parted to trim ; but men may act from the desire of the love 
of God, even when destitute of the love of God, from the 
fact, that every command of God is a motive. 

If the priest had been rilled with the love of God, he would 
have relieved the wants of a distressed neighbor, simply from 
the inherent energy of that potent cause. The same effect 
would have followed, had the priest desired to obtain the love 
of God more than he desired the blessings of time ; for, if man 
is the creature of motive, and w^e allow the priest to have de- 
sired the love of God more than he desired the opposing pref- 
erence for the things that came in conflict with his benevolence, 
he would have rendered the acts of charity in correspondence 
with the predominant motive, since by such acts is God's fa- 
vor secured. The priest would argue the question in this 
way : Now, here is an occasion that has arisen in my career 
and current of life, by the providence of God, giving me the 
opportunity of testing my faith, in which I am under a resist- 
less and unavoidable necessity to perform either a good or 
bad action. There is no escape from an action. I am called 
upon by God either to relieve this man, or not to relieve him 
— there is no other alternative. Now, the command of Jesus 
Christ is, that I shall relieve that man ; and by obeying Jesus 
Christ, I can secure the favor or love of God. Yet, there are 
some inconveniences connected with this affair. If I stop to 
relieve him, it will be a dead loss to me in time and money : 
I have neither to spare conveniently ; besides, the trouble and 
vexation of the thing will not be inconsiderable. Moreover, 
I am a man of some character, and it may jeopard my stand- 
ing with the observing spectators to be found in too close inti- 
macy with I know not whom ; a man, for aught I know, of 
low circumstances and low character. The choice of the two 
motives is before the priest. If he desires to procure the fa- 
vor of God in greater strength of desire than he desires the 
opposing considerations, he will act from the predominant 



334 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



motive. He would then relieve the man from the motive of 
the love of God. 

But if the priest preferred his time, or his money, or his 
ease, or his personal respectability to the love of God, he 
would pass upon the other side. His conduct in this event 
would be governed by the predominant motive of the love 
of evil, since it is evil to love the creature more than God. 
There is no objection in loving created or temporal things ; 
the objection against this love arises when it surpasses in 
strength the love of God. 

But the Samaritan comes along, and sees a fellow-creature 
in distress. Now, here is precisely the same circumstance, 
and the same occasion, with regard to which the priest was 
called upon to act, and they now call upon the*Samaritan to act. 

The Samaritan goes through the same process of reasoning. 
His understanding presents the whole case to him : he argues 
the question as the priest argues it. Here is an occasion, ar- 
gues he, that has arisen in my current of life, in which I am 
called upon to choose between good and evil. Now what am 
I to do ? It is extremely inconvenient for me to be stop- 
ped just at this time. I am very busy ; besides, what money 
I have, I have immediate use for it. Moreover, I know that 
the affair will be attended with many annoying circumstances ; 
in addition to which, this man may be a great thief, and it is 
unpleasant to be found upon too intimate terms with men of 
low character. But what am I to do ? I desire to receive 
the favor of God, and that I know I cannot secure unless I 
obey Jesus Christ, and he bids me to help this man. I see 
other men passing upon the other side, but can I ? I cannot, 
because I desire to love God, which desire I can only accom- 
plish by obeying my Saviour. 

Now, here are the different reasons, and here are the two 
motives. If Mr. Locke's theory be true, then it must follow 
that the priest and the Samaritan both acted from reasons, 



THE WILL. 



335 



when they both, with regard to the same transaction and with 
the same reasons before them, pursued precisely opposite lines 
of conduct. 

Is it not true, rather, that the priest acted against reason, 
and from the predominance of a bad motive ? And is it not 
equally true, that the Samaritan acted from a good motive, 
and from a wise reason ? 

There can be no question that the priest had the ability to 
act as the Samaritan did ; for the Scripture informs us that 
no man shall be tempted above what he is able to bear. The 
reason why the priest did not relieve the man was, that he chose 
to submit to the temptations of evil. But his ability was 
not a natural ability, for the reason that there is a motive ex- 
isting in every command of Jesus Christ God does not give 
a command without accompanying it with a divine energy. 
The command of God is the will of God, and man performs 
it by the will of God. Temptations affect men differently. 
Christianity is the growth of the religious will ; hence a 
Christian can perform religious actions easily, in proportion to 
the strength of his religion. The Samaritan, if a religious 
man, found no difficulty, in all probability, in what he did. 
But it was difficult to the priest, because he was not possessed 
of the love of God. 

But with regard to Mr. Locke's theory, that man is a rea- 
sonable being, it mav be safelv affirmed that it involves an 
absurdity, unless he will allow that a man is a reasonable 
being when he acts from an unreasonable reason. When men 
act from false or fallacious reasons, which Mr. Locke allows, 
he still contends that they are reasonable beings. A man so 
acting may think he is a reasonable being, but can his decep- 
tion make a radical falsity a moral truth ? 

The priest was governed, Mr. Locke would say, by a false 
or fallacious reason, and his ability to be governed by this rea- 
son, was the proof of the rationality of his freedom. The con- 



336 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



elusion is a plain non sequitur. Whoever is governed by an 
irrational reason is an irrational being, whatever may be his 
own private opinion upon the subject. Man cannot be con- 
sidered to be a rational being, unless he is invariably governed 
by a rational reason or by a true reason, and never by a false 
or irrational reason. God is a rational being in the true, and 
only true sense. Man, in his conduct, may be disposed to be 
rational, but then his disposition to be rational, and his being 
rational, are widely dissimilar things. This distinction Mr. 
Locke and the majority of Calvinistic writers fail to notice. 

We are willing to admit that the priest thought he was 
acting very rationally, when he preferred, for irrational reasons, 
to avoid the acts of duty required of him. That is not the 
question Mr. Locke discusses. He maintains that man is a 
reasonable being, because he always governs his conduct by 
the last decision of the mind. He confounds the distinction 
of true and false reasoning. Whoever acts from a false rea- 
son is an irrational being, however he may be disposed to be 
rational, and however rational he may consider the false rea- 
son to be. When Mr. Locke contends that a man is governed 
by an irrational reason, as he does very plainly, does he not 
make the man a fool, instead of a rational being ? What 
distinguishes a rational being from a fool ? The difference is, 
that he acts from a reason ; the fool acts from a false reasom 
Then does it not follow that a man is a fool, who acts from a 
false or fallacious reason, however he may esteem it ? His 
estimation cannot change the laws of truth. 

A false reason is no reason at all. Hence, the man who 
acts from a false reason is clearly irrational, or a fool, pro 
tanto, since he acts from no reason at all. Hence, Mr. Locke 
will have to contend that a man is rational when he acts from 
a fool's motive. A false reason is a fool's motive, since it is 
not a reason. Suppose we were to allow to Mr. Locke, that a 
man is determined by the last determination of his mind 



THE WILL. 



337 



when he rejects the Christian religion, it would not thence 
follow, as he argues, that he is a rational being, unless this 
last reason of the mind is not a fool's notion ; because it cer- 
tainly cannot be contended, that a man acts rationally when 
he is governed by a fool's notion, simply because he imagines 
falsely that his fool's notion is a true reason, and determines 
his conduct accordingly. 

The liberty for which Mr. Locke contends is the liberty of 
acting from a false reason, if men happen to arrive at that 
determination after the examination. 

It would seem to be certainly absurd to say that true 
freedom can consist in acting from a fool's notion, instead of 
a true reason, because a man has preferred to adopt it as the 
result of a last determination. It is certainly absurd to 
affirm that a man who governs his conduct by a fool's notion, 
which he miscalls a reason, exhibits " not a fault, but a per- 
fection of our nature." This would make the fool the only 
free and rational agent. " If to break loose from the power 
of acting," from a foolish or false reason, which false reason 
happens to be the " result of the last determination," is cal- 
culated to indicate want of human perfection, then the height 
of human perfection must consist in acting from a fool's 
notion miscalled, or misconceived. Yet this is the legitimate 
result of Locke's philosophy. 

The ability of man to act in view of a false reason is, we 
grant, the very seminal principle that indicates the freedom 
of the created being. But then the reason, or the supposed 
reason, is not the motive, but the preference for it is. , The 
evil qualities in things evil are false and deceptive qualities. 
They have no real existence. There is nothing real or sub- 
stantive but a true reason. It is needful to bear in mind that 
men could not be able to choose (the reader bearing in mind 
the meaning of choice, as indicating a selection out of more 
than one cause) a true reason, unless he were furnished at 

15 



338 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



the same time with an ability to choose a false reason, as 
are all the reasons in favor of the love of evil, or as are the 
attractions of prohibited things. Man's freedom, we admit, 
consists in this ability. But then it is not the reason that 
determines the man, even if the reason is the last determina- 
tion of a fair examination, as Locke maintains. A reason can 
never be the result of a determination, or examination since 
a reason is a subsisting moral truth. Can a moral truth that 
has an existence antecedent to any human examination be, 
by logical possibility, the result of any posterior examination ? 
Must not a cause always precede an effect ? A madman is 
an irrational being. Hence every supposed moral truth from 
which he may be supposed to act, can only exist in his 
imagination, as an illusion or deceptive abstraction. This de- 
scribes the man who is supposed to act from a false, illusive, 
or deceptive abstraction, miscalled reason. If, as Locke says, 
a man " prefers a certain thing, or a certain action, in his 
present thoughts, before any other," is it not " plain," says 
he, "that he thinks better of it, and would have it before 
any other V If he thinks better of it than another, does he 
not prefer it to another ? Then is not the preference the 
cause of the action ? Is preference an intellectual deduction 
of a pre-existing truth, or is it the phenomenon of the affec- 
tions, or of the will ? Does it not therefore follow that men 
act from preference, even according to Locke ? Hence, does 
it not therefore follow that man is a chooser, and the prefer- 
ence or the choice of the motive, the quality or index of the 
freedom ? Hence, then, does it not follow that true freedom 
consists, as does also true rationality, in choosing a true 
reason exclusively ? But human freedom is not invariably a 
true freedom, nor is human rationality always a true ration- 
ality, since man may choose a false motive, and may act 
from an irrational consideration, and since also God is the 
only free and only rational being. 



THE WILL. 



339 



Locke says, " it is the perfection of our nature to act from 
the result of a fair examination." That is to say, the result 
of a fair examination is the cause of the human act, and that 
the inherent energy of this motive, or result, or cause, is the 
perfection of our nature. Very well. ]Now where will' this 
logic lead him and his school ? Will it not carry them into 
the philosophy that it is the perfection of our nature to be 
governed by a fool's notion, when this fool's notion happens to 
be the result of the examination ? Therefore, does it not 
follow conclusively that the man who, after a fair examina- 
tion of the authenticity of the Gospel of Christ, arrives at 
the result that it is false, thereby indicates the perfection of 
his nature ? Are not infidels, theD, the only perfect men? 

But of all logic, the most singular is that that makes a 
false, illusive abstraction, miscalled a reason, a thing that has 
no real or substantive existence, the result of a fair examina- 
tion, and the motive that controls human conduct. Can the 
mind conceive of any thing more unphilosophical, than that 
a mental illusion can be either the result of a fair examina- 
tion or a cause vital with activity \ Does this not plainly 
make a motive out of a nonentity, an abstraction, an illusion ? 

Does not every student know that one of the main pillars 
of the theory of Calvin reposes upon the doctrine that God 
is the cause or motive of every action ? Locke is a disciple 
of this school, and one possessed of the very largest reach 
of intellect, and of metaphysical acuteness, almost without a 
parallel ; and yet, in as direct opposition to the view that 
God is the cause of human actions, as the mind can conceive, 
he maintains, that " it is the perfection of our nature to act 
from this false reason, when it is the result of a fair exami- 
nation." 

We do not suppose that it will be maintained that the 
result of a fair examination is a true reason invariably. Were 
this maintained, the argument would close. We suppose it 



340 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



will be allowed that it is possible for men to close a fair 
examination with an untrue deduction. We think it is cer- 
tainly to be regarded as an imperfection of our nature to 
arrive at a false or untrue deduction, and to govern our con- 
duct accordingly. But we do not see how this imperfection 
is ever to be obviated, as long as men are finite beings. We 
certainly think it an essential quality of the divine mind 
alone to arrive invariably at a true reason. 

We may, upon the other hand, consider it as the perfec- 
tion of our freedom, that we are able, by the preferences of 
the will, to govern our conduct according to the fallacious 
deductions of the understanding, for certainly without this 
our conduct would be always and invariably right and 
proper. And this always and invariable right and proper 
conduct would, in such a case, be an unavoidable or predes- 
tinated conduct, and hence, divested of all merit. 

Our ability to govern our conduct from the result of an 
examination, when that result is a false or untrue deduction, 
may indicate the freedom of the will in this regard, but it 
undoubtedly also indicates an imperfection, and hence it may 
be philosophically argued that that will is imperfect that 
governs its conduct according to a fallacious reason. It is 
this state of imperfection that characterizes the sinner. And 
it is the opposite of this state that characterizes the Christian. 

The Christian is perfect, or his choice is perfect, when he 
governs his conduct by a true reason, and the sinner is im- 
perfect, and his choice is imperfect, when he governs his 
conduct by a false deduction, or a supposed reason. 

In this investigation it is important that the reader shall 
constantly bear in mind the distinction between the belief or 
confidence of the mind and what may, for want of better and 
more accurate phraseology, be called the belief or confidence 
of the will. Locke speaks of the determination of the mind. 
He, by this form of speech, intends to indicate a mental con- 



THE WILL. 



341 



elusion, or the deduction of the understanding. But it can 
never philosophically be predicated: of a deduction of the 
mind, that it is a determination. Intellectual deductions are 
never determinations, since determinations are voluntary phe- 
nomena or the beliefs of the will, and since also mental con- 
clusions or mental phenomena are involuntary, for they are 
the results of evidence. 

In opposition to this theory we contend, that however irra- 
tionally a man may act, he never acts irresponsibly ; because 
he never acts but from a chosen motive. 

If the reader will observe, he will find that he is brought 
to decide between good and evil in every event, in every trans- 
action, in every action of his life, from the salutation of social 
intercourse to a division of his inheritance among the desti- 
tute. And he is to keep in mind the criterion of Christian 
duties. "Whatever command of Jesus Christ you perform 
reluctantly with the view that it is pleasing to God, but un- 
pleasant to yourself, is an act of faith. It is the unpleasant- 
ness of the duty that makes it a Christian duty, and distin- 
guishes it from a moral duty — distinguishes it from those 
duties of kindness performed by benevolent moralists. If you 
wish to behold a Christian duty, see that the cross is on or 
around it. A Christian should never consider those acts of 
kindness he performs cheerfully, at the dictate of the natural 
impulses of the heart, as Christian, but moral duties. These 
duties can be, and are performed, by disbelievers. The cross 
is the Christian's test. 

We are now enabled to understand why the priest passed 
on the other side. The priest had no voluntary power to 
have compassion by acts of charity, because his motive of ac- 
tion was love of evil. He passed upon the other side be- 
cause he loved evil more than God, and the love of evil con- 
trolled his conduct. He preferred his ease, or his money, or 
his time, or his personal respectability of character, which 



342 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



are forms of the love of evil. He did not love God, he 
did not possess the motive of love of God, as the predom- 
inant motive. So soon as the priest passed upon the other 
side, he should, at once, have seen and understood, that 
he did not love God, and had not eternal life, which is im- 
plied in the love of God. His conduct was the finger or 
God, pointing him to his internal condition. It should have 
awakened him from the sleep of death, to the effort to bring 
himself under the operation of a better motive, by performing 
less difficult acts. So, likewise, upon the contrary, when the 
Samaritan passed by, and saw God's creature in distress, 
compassion seized upon him. This arose from the motive of 
the love of God, that controlled the operative powers of the 
man. The compassion was a feeling the Samaritan could 
not help. It was a mere effect. He loved God, and God 
impressed upon him love of man. The priest might have 
arrested his course, and have helped the man, if he could 
have foreseen that he would have been applauded by the 
world, if he loved its plaudits ; or if he could have gratified 
any feeling congenial to the love of evil, by assisting him ; 
but he could not have acted from the motive that prompted 
the Samaritan, without a change of motives. 

The Samaritan did not act from a sense of duty, or from 
considerations connected with self-interest in any occult mode 
of reasoning self-interest may assume, but from the love ot 
God spontaneously. Compassion was the motive, under a 
different form of words. Love of God is the source of true 
compassion. The love of Christ constrained him. 

Now, when the priest saw the distressed condition of God's 
creature, he acted from the last determination. He scanned 
the whole thing over in his mind, and pursued the line ot 
conduct most congenial to him. He preferred not to help 
him, because it was most agreeable to him not to help him. 
Was he a free agent ? Certainly he was not while under the 



THE WILL. 



343 



government of the law of sin. Certainly he was not. He 
was only a free agent in respect to his ability to procure a 
different motive by which to be controlled. Is a sinner a 
free agent to arrest his course of sinning by voluntary power ? 
Then he must be God, since God has given him no such 
motive. If a man wishes to arrest a course of sinful conduct, 
he must not trust to anv free agency existing in himself. He 
must apply for a borrowed and adventitious assistance. God 
has granted to a sinner a salvation system containing a con- 
dition that he can perforin, and when he performs the con- 
dition, he thereby obtains the motive of love of God, and 
then, and not till then, can he love God by voluntary emo- 
tion, and bring forth spontaneous acts of benevolence and 
charity to man. 

It is necessary to observe the momentous distinction be- 
tween obeying Christ and serving God. These two acts are 
radically dissimilar. God never receives a reluctant service. 
In order to worship God, we must render a free, spontaneous, 
chosen, willing, voluntary service. Hence, the service of God 
does not consist in actions, but in the service of the affections, 
although actions are here the external test of it. Did the ser- 
vice of God consist in actions, his service would discontinue the 
moment we entered into heaven, because a spirit cannot act. 
An action implies an external materiality — an objective world. 
But the service of Jesus Christ, upon the contrary, is a reluc- 
tant service, from beginning to end — is a probationary trial 
in a material world. It begins reluctantly, and it closes re- 
luctantly, although less so as men are endued with the love of 
God. ^Ve must not forget the object of the Christian system. 
Its object is to confer upon sinners the Christian religion. 
Hence the system, and the object of the system, and the 
effect of the system are all dissimilar. 

The Christian system is a divine contract between God and 
Christ in relation to man, settling a condition, which being 



344 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

performed by man, shall have the effect of securing for him 
the Christian religion, which is the love of God or grace ; 
and when this love of God or grace is obtained, then the man 
is thereby enabled to serve God — as God only can be served — 
by a free, spontaneous affection. The service of God is always 
delightful. But the service of Christ is a reluctant service, 
because it is a sendee of self-denial. God cannot be served 
by any self-denial or reluctant service. 

We do not perceive how a condition of grace could be in- 
stituted for the benefit of a sinner who naturally loves evil, 
unless man had ability to act in opposition to desire, and un- 
less the performance of it were a reluctant service. If there 
were never an instance of volition in opposition to desire, there 
never could be an instance of self-denial. "We deny ourselves 
when we take up our cross. Our services of prayer, our ser- 
vices of benevolence and of fasting are not always reluctantly 
performed, but the reluctance is what constitutes the service 
a Christian service, and this reluctance is greatly enhanced 
by the divine command that they shall be discharged pri- 
vately. Men may take delight in public prayer, and public 
fasting and almsgiving, because they may thereby receive 
glory of men. Christian clergymen may not be unlike the 
hypocrites of the day of our Saviour, for " they loved to pray 
standing in the synagogues, and in the corners of the streets," 
and in other public places; but this is no observance of the 
command of Jesus Christ, for he says of such, " they have 
their reward Whenever a command of Christ is made to 
accord with human nature by the metaphysical subtilty of in- 
fidelity, it is a prostitution of the command. 

" Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to 
them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use 
you." This is entering in at the narrow gate. When the 
English political martyrs disrobed themselves, adjusted their 
position upon the block, and prepared their necks for the 



THE WILL. 



345 



stroke of the axe of the executioner of the law, they did an 
action infinitely more repugnant, from an infinitely less array 
of consequence, than is required by the condition of the Gos- 
pel of Jesus Christ, in order to enter into his spiritual king- 
dom. It was not a thing they desired, yet they willed to do 
it. St. Paul was determined not to know any thing among 
men save Christ Jesus, and him crucified. The Christian has 
to crucify himself to the world, and the world to him. " He 
that taketh not his cross and followeth after me, is not worthy 
of me." The life in Christ is eminently a life of self-abne- 
gation. It is a life in opposition to the agreeable in human 
nature. That is the matrix of a Christian action. Hence the 
true criterion of Christian duties is, their opposition to the nat- 
ural or agreeable impulses of the heart. Charity is a disagree- 
able duty, or it is no Christian duty. Whenever circumstances 
make it agreeable, it, pro hac vice, ceases to be a Christian 
duty, and degenerates into morality, or rises to a divine ser- 
vice. The cross must attach to the discharge of every Chris- 
tian duty, for it is the cross that constitutes the mark, or the 
criterion of the life or vitality of the duty. Take away the 
cross, and it is like going to the theatre, or the dance, or 
to any other pleasant occupation. Remove the cross, and 
wicked men may perform external religious acts. 

Whenever we draw the distinction between a reason and a 
motive, we get rid of the conclusion necessarians propose to 
themselves, to deduce from the premise that we govern our 
conduct according to the last determination of the mind. 
The last determination of the mind cannot exert any influ- 
ence, for the plain reason that it is not vital — is not a motive. 
Xothing can cause motion but a motive. The expression, last 
" determination of the mind," is a flat contradiction of terms, if 
it means any thing other than the last determination of the 
man. What can determine to act, but the cause of action \ 
What is an action but the cause of action, in certain circum- 

15* 



346 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



stances doing a certain thing for certain reasons ? This is 
true of all actions, whether human or divine. We often 
speak of the will of God, and of the power of God, and of 
the grace of God, but these are merely descriptive sentences, 
allowable in virtue of the infirmity of human speech. There 
is no such thing truly as the will of God, or as the power of 
God, as distinct from God himself. The will or power of 
God, exhibited in nature, is God himself exhibited in nature. 
A divine action is God in action ; a human action is man in 
action. A human action, then, is a human will moved by a mo- 
tive, that motive being God, the original cause of motion, in a 
certain situation doing a certain thing for a preferred reason. 

An action, then, is the determination of the will for a cer- 
tain chosen reason, performed in virtue of a certain chosen 
cause. The will, looking in the mirror of the mind, discov- 
ers reasons, makes its selection, determines to act, and acts 
according to the power of the chosen motive. The wicked 
man, having chosen the motive of love of evil, looks into the 
mind, makes its selection in conformity with existing prefer- 
ence, and acts according to the power of the chosen motive. 

All action is the product of excitement. Hence, when we 
say a man is influenced by a reason to perform an action, we 
mean that the excitement to the action has arisen from the 
motive of the action in view of the reason, not from any 
influence or excitement in the reason, but from the excite- 
ment of the will. 

The will determines in view of the deliberations of the 
mind, and has a self-determining power of choice of motive, 
or a free power of choice, but not independent of reason. 

As we have said, an act is the voice of the will, and a de- 
duction is the voice of the understanding ; the one is (when 
the act performed is a prescribed act, that is, a duty enjoined 
by the Mediator) the belief of the will, the other the belief 
of the understanding. 



THE WILL. 



347 



This distinction is very distinctly drawn by St. James. 
" Even so," says he, " faith, if it hath not works, is dead, 
being alone." This faith that is without works, is the belief 
of the understanding. He calls it a dead faith, because ' it is 
devoid of activity. This faith is simply the deductions of 
the mind produced by evidence. 

That this kind of faith is necessary to salvation is not 
truer than that the existence of man as a created being is 
necessary to salvation. There could be no salvation unless 
there existed a created being to save. But then the one is 
as distinct from the scriptural definition of faith as an active 
principle, as the other. 

There are many things that are necessary to salvation, that 
do not enter into the nature or definition of the condition of 
salvation. For example, a Redeemer is necessary to salva- 
tion. A revelation or dispensation is necessary to salvation. 
The blood of Christ is necessary to salvation, and very many 
other things we could easily enumerate, and yet none of 
these things constitute the condition of salvation according 
to the testament of Christ. So we say the belief of the 
understanding in the truth of the divine origin of the system 
of Jesus Christ is necessary to salvation, but we say with 
equal positiveness that it does not constitute any part of the 
condition of salvation. This condition is an active principle, 
and the beliefs of the understanding are never active principles. 

Hence St. James calls intellectual deductions " faith with- 
out works i. e., an inactive principle. Hence he said, " I 
will show thee my faith by my works," or acts. 

Metaphysical philosophy can never be brought to sustain 
the proposition that a reason, that a deduction, that a 
thought, that a conviction of the mind, can ever, under any 
conceivable state of circumstances, be an active principle. 

Having selected its reason, which it always does in sub- 
serviency to the controlling motive previously chosen, the 



348 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



will, excited thereby into action, acts from the chosen motive, 
in virtue of the communicated divine activity of the motive. 
The mind occupies the same relation to the will that the 
eyes do. The reason tells the truth, the whole truth, and 
nothing but the truth, according to its capacity, for the use 
of the volition, and the eyes do the same office precisely. 

We hold that there is an inherent affinity between the 
mind and truth, as there is between the eyes and truth. We 
hold that God has endowed the mind with an original apti- 
tude to recognize the truth ; a tendency towards the truth. 

Now, we do not desire to be understood as maintaining 
that man, or the will of man, or the soul of man, has any 
affinity for, or original aptitude to recognize, the truth, or to 
prefer it. We think that with respect to religious truth, it 
has suffered an eclipse in the fall. 

An imposthume upon a man's face is a hideous spectacle. 
The will of man revolts from it. But the vision is true to 
its office. It declares according to its laws of organism. 
Man in the possession of a sound organ of vision, can never 
make it tell him that the imposthume is a rose and a delight- 
ful spectacle of observation. The law of the organism of the 
understanding, like the law of the organism of the vision, 
like the law of all the organs of man, is true to its office, 
however it may be consulted. 

If the divine origin of the Christian system, which includes 
the divine origin of all its parts, were submitted, as we have 
said, as a question merely of evidence, to be decided upon 
the proof sustaining it, to the mechanism of the mind, divest- 
ing the soul of any interest or concern in it, a favorable 
verdict would be as necessary as its truth is certain. This 
follows from the fact that it is true. 

Hence this decision cannot be a religious act, but is a 
mere verdict of the mind which it has no ability to avoid. 
This verdict of the mind we call the belief of the mind. 



THE WILL. 



3^9 



The man who yields assent to a proposition, whether in 
religion or morals, that does not receive the concurrence of 
his understanding is, and never can be any thing else than, a 
fool or a hypocrite. The reasoner doing this would be like 
Polonius, when Hamlet told him the cloud was like a camel. 
u Like a camel," replied he. When told it was like a weasel, 
he replied, M it was backed like a weasel." When told it 
was like a whale ; " very like a whale," replied the dissem- 
bler. If one man, perfect as a man and honest as a reasoner, 
looks at a horse, and hears the evidence that it is a horse, 
and believes that it is a horse, all other men, perfect as men, 
and honest as reasoners, having the same evidence, will come 
to the same conclusion. This results from the fixedness of 
God's laws. Hence error cannot arise because there is any 
uncertainty in truth. Men may be under no uneasiness 
upon that score. If all men disbelieve a truth, the truth is 
not affected by the general incredulity. Hence error is defi- 
cient knowledge in the creature, not instability of the truth. 
When, looking through a telescope, Galileo saw evidence to 
induce him to adopt the Copernican system in opposition to 
the theological teachings of the day, sight furnished evi- 
dence, and Galileo was a heretic. 

An authority from which there was no appeal, and whose 
orthodox voice was claimed to be infallible, told Galileo he 
was wrong. God's earthlv ambassadors and accredited vice- 
gerents in the possession of transmitted authority declared 
one thing, and Galileo's eyes declared another. Galileo sur- 
rendered his convictions at the tyranny of priestly dictation, 
and became a moral traitor. Yet no sooner was he liberated 
from the dungeons of the Inquisition than nature vindicated 
its dignity and its office, and he exclaimed, stamping his foot 
upon the earth, " Still it moves." 

Blase Pascal has a thought here worthy commendation. 
"A papal decree has been obtained," says he, ; ' by the Jes- 



350 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



uits, condemning Galileo's theory of the earth's motion. It is 
useless. If the earth really whirls, all mankind cannot keep 
it from whirling, nor keep themselves from whirling with 
it." ISTo man has a right to disbelieve the divine authority 
of the Gospel, but whoever credits it in opposition to his 
judgment, is a fool or a hypocrite. There is no heresy but 
the heresy of the will. An excellent Christian may be a 
very defective theologian. 

That the principle that determines is man, and not mind — 
is will, and not understanding — is apparent from the exami- 
nation of the conduct of the brute creation. 

They determine to act, and act from the will, and are 
excited into action by the operation of instinctive laws, or 
reasons instinctively perceived. The faithful house-dog, seat- 
ed in his master's porch, seeing him approach the gate, deter- 
mines to greet him with gladness. If a stranger approaches, 
he determines to oppose his approach. He is moved by the 
same power or motive that moves man, and is excited into 
action by instinct instead of reason. The animal cause of 
action, subsisting in the dog, is excited into action by instinct, 
whereas the cause of action subsisting in man is excited into 
action by a preferred reason. Hence the cause of action 
existing in a dog differs from the cause of action existing in 
a man, in the particular that the one is excited into action by 
instinct, and the other by what man adjudges to be reasons. 
One act is, hence, as much an act of faith as another act, 
although one act may not, and does not indicate as high 
grade of faith as another. Acts serve as indexes of the rela- 
tive goodness or badness of the will, or the principle that 
chooses the cause or motive of human action. Some Chris- 
tians are able to perform some duties and fail in others. 
Hence the necessity of easy and difficult Christian acts, accom- 
modated to the relative strength of the Christian's love of 
good. It is much easier to be industrious in business than 



THE WILL. 



351 



to receive an unjust blow without indignation, or to be sick 
without complaining. Nothing can cause or feel excitement 
but the will, operated upon by the chosen motive or cause of 
action. Hence, although the will is excited into action 'by a 
reason, none of the excitement exists in the reason, because it 
is not a motive. The excitement to an action is necessarily 
spontaneous, since it is an original choice. 

When Calvinists contend that men are influenced into 
action by the last determination of the mind, when that 
determination arises from a fallacious reason, they contra- 
dict themselves manifestly, glaringly, and unphilosophically. 
What is their doctrine ? That God is the only cause of 
action, and that neither man nor reasons have any self-deter- 
mining power of action, or of possessing an original excite- 
ment. They are under the necessity of renouncing one of 
the two propositions, or admit that God is a fallacious 
reason. Suppose that they were to contend that men's evil 
deeds were traceable to want of belief in the divine origin of 
the Christian system. Now this is not only a false but a 
sinful reason. This false and sinful reason is then the cause 
of human conduct in this regard. "When they maintain this, 
they flatly deny their other proposition, that God is the only 
motive or cause of human actions. It is plainly contradic- 
tory to affirm that God is the only cause, and that false and 
sinful reasons are also causes, or motives. It is plainly con- 
tradictory to affirm that God is the only motive, and that 
false and sinful reasons are also motives. 

The will of man is a vital principle. Hence, moved or 
excited from external influences, as we say. Man's will is 
like man's flesh. Thrust a pin into a man's flesh, and the 
flesh is excited. Wliat excites the flesh ? The pin ? The 
pin is a harmless piece of metal, dead and inanimate, as 
much so as a reason. 

The Bible is a history of a salvation scheme. Then the 



352 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



particular that constitutes an act, as an act of faith, is its 
prescription in the scheme. An act is a declaration or a prac- 
tical exhibition of the human will. It is the outward demon- 
stration of the interior free principle. Action is the mirror 
in which the will glasses itself. The will dresses itself, so to 
speak, in acts. It cannot otherwise exhibit itself. What are 
laws of truth ? They are the laws of God. The laws of 
physics, the laws of morals, the laws of reason, and sal- 
vation laws, are all laws of God, or God himself vital with 
activity. The only particular in which salvation laws differ 
from other laws of God is, not that they are not equal- 
ly fixed, not that there is any more chance or any thing- 
more casual or accidental about the one than the other, but 
that the objects of the one are free. All the laws of God, 
including salvation laws, are fixed and unchangeable laws, 
working their legitimate and settled effects, simply because 
they are the laws of God. Faith, as a condition of grace, is 
a law of God, precisely as gravitation is a law of God, or as 
two and two make four is a law of God, or as excess in the 
use of alcoholic drinks will produce intoxication is a law of 
God. Between those laws there is not a shade of distinction. 
A distinction only arises when they come to be applied. Sal- 
vation laws are applicable to free agents, and other laws are 
not. Water has no free will to say whether it will obey 
physical laws or not. But man has with regard to salvation 
laws. Man is a choosing principle. Material bodies obey 
the laws of nature, whenever they are made to comply with 
their conditions. The condition of the law of gravitation is, 
that a material body shall be thrown into the air. If you 
throw water into the air, the condition is complied with, and 
the water falls by the law or will of God, called gravitation. 
But water cannot throw itself into the air. Now mind can- 
not comply with a condition, because it is under the domin- 
ion of laws of truth, which are the will of God. The will 



THE WILL. 



353 



can comply or not comply, as it chooses. What is hypoc- 
risy ? An act of the will, or the result of the understanding ? 
This inquiry has an important bearing upon the question 
under review. Is the understanding of the hypocrite in 
fault? Not at all. Quite the contrary. For if the un- 
derstanding is at fault, it ceases to be hypocrisy. It is 
the honesty of the understanding of the hypocrite that 
makes his acts hypocritical. Hypocrisy is doing acts in 
bad faith. Bad faith implies that the party knows bet- 
ter. If the understanding of the hypocrite is deceived, 
or is honest, he is no longer a hypocrite, however de- 
luded he may be. No man can call a prostrate worship- 
per of Juggernaut, crushed by the idol, a hypocrite. Why ? 
Because his understanding is honest, although in gross 
error. 

The same truth is illustrated in the case of every deliber- 
ate falsehood. If man tells a lie, his mind is honest. The 
very ingredient that makes a falsehood a lie, is the one that 
the mind of the relator knows better. The mind must be 
necessarily honest, or the narrator does not tell a lie, when 
he tells an untruth. If the mind of the narrator of a false 
statement honestly credits the statement, the false statement 
is no lie. It is defective knowledge. These principles are 
justly to be applied to false or erroneous theological doc- 
trines. If the mind of a Christian is honest in his opinions, 
however erroneous his opinions may be, his salvation is not 
thereby jeopardized, if his effort of will to obey Christ Jesus, 
according to his wisest conception of his system, is honest 
and sincere. What can be the conception of an ignorant 
African, or untutored Indian, at the moment when converted 
to God under the first sermon of the first missionary that 
they hear? Like an infant's conception of the stars, and 
infinitely less accurate. The intellectual knowledge of God 
is an absurdity. The human mind cannot know even a 



354 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



finite cause. The only knowledge we can have of a spiritual, 
immaterial, original cause, called love, is by the will — is by 
communion ; is by an illapse of the motive, vital with influ- 
ence, within the soul of man ; is by consciousness. The 
human intellect can have no knowledge of a spirit that is 
not speculative. Speculative information is all we can possi- 
bly know, intellectually, of Christ, and that is no knowledge 
at all, but supposition. He is a principle — the author of 
motion, the first vital principle of excitement. What knowl- 
edge have we of the cause of human action even, or of a 
mechanical cause of action ? Not the first principle of real 
knowledge. The soul can experience a knowledge that 
springs from communion, and grounded upon consciousness, 
but so far as the mind has any knowledge of the Saviour, 
it is as proper to believe that he is one thing as another. It 
is only conjecture. We may know something of his history, 
but that is only historical knowledge. But of him we can 
know nothing separate from experience. We may feel his 
divine presence in supernatural impartations of tranquillity ot 
soul, and joy in the Holy Ghost ; and this knowledge the 
most ignorant can feel as fully as the most intellectual, since 
it is the union of the finite and infinite motive, or first 
cause. This cause can be as well comprehended by the eyes 
as by the intellect of a finite being. But it can be compre- 
hended by neither. It may be the object of consciousness, 
but not of knowledge. It is impossible for the mind to 
acquire knowledge of an unreal cause, because it is a reflect- 
ing organism. It casts off or away what the soul takes in. 
It is the mirror of the will. The mind can have no more 
knowledge than the material mirror, that receives and reflects 
a thousand faces. The eyes receive impressions from exter- 
nal nature, but they have no knowledge ; neither do they 
see. Man is a knowing animal, but his mind does not also 
know. His mind is the reflecting organism that discloses 



THE WILL. 



355 



images, or reasons, from which the man, or the soul, or the 
will, acquires knowledge. 

Are Christians aware of the consequences of the doctrine, 
that the mind can reflect God ? God is not a reason, but a 
motive ; neither is he matter. If God can be reflected, he 
must enter through the organs of man, as man naturally has 
no intuitive knowledge. Can God be an idea, or knowledge ? 
Man acquires all his knowledge through material organs. 
Can God be transmitted through organs ? We may acquire 
and transmit ideas, or reasons, or facts, the knowledge of 
the purposes and designs of God, historically ; but can we 
take in, acquire, transmit God himself? There is a wide 
difference between knowing God and knowing the character- 
istics and purposes of God. To know the purposes of God, 
as revealed, is to acquire a knowledge of reasons historically. 
To know the history of the Saviour, as revealed, is to acquire 
a knowledge of facts historically. A revealed history is only 
an accurate history. But to know God is to experience his 
divine influence ; is to be conscious of a divine spiritual com- 
munion, that created influences can neither give nor imitate. 
This is what is meant by being " filled with the Holy Ghost." 
When St. Peter preached his first Gospel sermon upon the 
day of Pentecost, how much did the Parthians, and Medes, 
and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Cap- 
padocia, in Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, in 
Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers 
of Rome, Cretes and Arabians, who were filled with the 
knowledge of God, and declared the " wonderful works of 
God," converts under the first Gospel sermon ever delivered — 
know about a consubstantial Trinity, tran substantiation, the 
eternal sonship, the mode of baptism, the apostolical suc- 
cession, the thousand and one tweedledums and tweedle- 
dees, that have converted the garden of the Lord into a ser- 
pent's nest, and presented the sad spectacle to a scoffing 



356 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



world, of Christians devouring each other for differences of 
opinion upon points no more essential to the Gospel than 
the color of the dress worn by St. Peter upon the occasion of 
its delivery ? The Gospel has but one condition — the con- 
dition of obedience or love. . Our Saviour never delivered 
but one sermon, and never had but one text, and that was 
love or obedience. 

Aside from the condition of the Gospel, these questions 
are of the utmost interest and importance. We do not " love 
Caesar less, but Rome more." They only become monsters 
when interposed between the soul of a sinner and the salva- 
tion of God. Then they become leprous plague-spots. The 
pursuit of knowledge is commendable, and difference of 
opinion — the collision of opinion — evolves it : hence a friend, 
and not an enemy : hence an institute of God, and not of 
man. Christians should pursue it with no loss of temper, or 
diminution of affection. The religion of Christ is to accom- 
pany the Christian into all the transactions of life, and 
especially in theological investigations. 

The doctrine we have advocated in this volume commends 
itself to favorable attention, from its practical character. It 
makes the Christian system the most useful system for time 
and eternity, that has ever been devised. 

It is commended to all the different denominations of 
Christians who regard obedience to Christ as of moral obli- 
gation, inasmuch as it makes obedience the condition, and 
mental convictions mere verdicts of the understanding, praise- 
worthy if honest, and correct if true. 

It is furthermore commended to them, inasmuch as it re- 
moves the bone of contention among them, and unites them 
all upon the common platform of obedience to Christ, accord- 
ing to their several understandings. 

It removes the question of predestination from human 
volition, and preserves the sovereignty of God. 



THE WILL. 



357 



It preserves the meritorious efficacy of the blood of Jesus 
Christ, without in any measure lessening the absolute neces- 
sity of a life of active usefulness. 

It commends itself to the Calvinist, because it preserves the 
foreordination of the one and only first cause in the temporal 
administration of the universe. 

It commends itself to the Araiinian, because it clears up 
the question of human freedom and the fulness of the atone- 
ment, without abridging the just prerogatives of God. 

It commends itself to the Roman Catholic, because it teaches 
the identity of the principle of works and faith. 

We here bring our observations to a close. What is writ- 
ten, is conscientiously written ; and if it be true, it cannot 
perish — if untrue, it ought to perish. We have said nothing- 
designed to wound the sensibilities of others. If we are in 
error, which is extremely likely, such is the infirmity of hu- 
man judgment, it cannot be other than an act of Christian 
courtesy to set us right. We have been earnest, because we 
have been sincere; but earnestness, subdued by eager love of 
man and a submissive love of the truth, is not altogether in- 
consistent with much humility of disposition. No one can be 
more impressively convinced than we are of the weight due 
to the consideration, that in the character of a mere civil- 
ian, we have ventured to discuss some of the most important 
and interesting questions, affecting our own and the salvation 
of others, that can engage the attention of rational beings. 
And if it be charged upon us that we have done so daringly, 
we shall be cheered by the reflection that we have done so 
honestly. We do not desire to claim the merit of a mock 
deference for mere human authority, however encircled in the 
arms of human superstition, that we do not and cannot feel. 
We bow to the right, but to no human interpretation of it. 
We declare our solemn conviction that we have not ventured 
beyond the precincts of our own hearthstones, nor trespassed 



358 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY . 



upon domain that is not common property, nor violated any 
prerogative properly appertaining to another. We run back 
our claim to enter early, or to linger long in the field of 
scriptural investigation ; to receive or not to receive the report 
of the returning fallible spies, who may come laden from this 
unoccupied land, according as we judge the burden borne by 
them to be fruit or not ; to question every answer that may 
be given by any Delphic oracle among our fellow-explorers, 
whether past or present, who may have searched, by the dim 
taper of human reason, for treasures in the exhaustless mine 
of Gospel truth, to the same indiscriminating authority that 
invests others with the common right to seek and find the 
truth of God in this his earthly domain. 

In the investigation into the true teachings of inspired 
wisdom, prior occupancy confers neither prior ownership nor 
prior authority. God occupies the same original relation to 
all the sons of Adam. For the opinions of those who have 
gone before us, whether individuals or collections of individ- 
uals, we feel a deference according to their success in ascer 
taining and fixing the truth. We have no resjDect for error, 
however imposing and venerable may be its advocates. 

We consider the intelligence of every creature of God, 
however dim and imperfect that intelligence may be, as the 
proper tribunal for the authoritative determination of theo- 
retical questions of theology — and according to that light 
solely does his responsibility as a willing principle depend — 
and fully concur with St. Paul in the divinity, as well as in 
the philosophical accuracy of the sentiment, that whoever 
abandons his honest convictions, although erroneous, is 
" damned," and is worthy of the sentence. The Gospel must 
be matter of individual choice, which excludes the choice of 
substituted human authority. We are not saved by the ac- 
curacy of human authority, nor is it submitted to our choice, 
either in a polished or in a crude state, but by the free choice 



THE WILL. 



359 



of J esus Christ. " Though an angel from heaven preach any 
other Gospel unto you, let him be accursed." 

The Gospel is no general revelation, although a general 
gift. It is a special disclosure of the mind of God to each 
one of his creatures, irrespective of human authority or hu- 
man agency. This relation is of older date than the employ- 
ment of human agency in the office of salvation. The Gospel 
was completed on the cross, and the institution of human in- 
strumentality occurred at a subsequent period, i. e., at the 
delivery of the ministerial commission. The relation, then, 
between God and his creatures, is of older date than the rela- 
tion of the Christian to the authority of Christ's accredited 
messengers. Civil authority is under an obligation to respect 
these prior divine rights. With respect to the Gospel as a 
mode of salvation, all men are equal, growing out of the fact 
that it had existence before Christ employed human instru- 
ments to preach it. Hence, human instrumentality is to be 
restricted to the limits of its legitimate official character as 
heralds of the Gospel and rulers of the church, according to 
a system in existence before their employment. Hence, they 
are deputized agents, acting under a strictly delegated author- 
ity, and their acts only bind when sustained by the law. 

The only sanction or penalty of the divine law is individual 
responsibility to God. If A. violates God's law, his penalty 
in respect to this theatre of action, is his individual responsi- 
bility to God, which negatives the right of human authority 
to judge. By this legislation, God has abolished all human 
judging tribunals, and erected the only and exclusive judg- 
ment-seat in heaven. Hence, the Gospel is no theocratic or 
governmental institution, but an individual remedy for indi- 
vidual diseases. Hence, it is not suited to men in masses, in 
collective capacities, in convocations, or assemblies. It is the 
business of individual life ; it is the rule of the daily inter- 
course of probationary existence. Hence its truths are not to 



360 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



be ascertained or determined by conventicles, by convocations, 
councils, or assemblies. It has no general interest ; it is a 
bosom companion. We are not directed to look at its truths 
through the magnifying-glasses of human authority, because 
that changes the relation of men to God, and makes human 
authority occupy the seat of the divine authority. The au- 
thority of the wisest of men is but the opinion of grown-up 
children, w r ho lived the fitful fever of life with all the poor 
infirmities of life, sickened and died, and were judged accord- 
ing to the deeds done in the body. Human authority cannot 
add a feather to God's truth. The error of collective human 
authority is more dangerous than individual error. An assem- 
bly has a public pride and a public conscience, an esprit du 
corps that lays it liable to other ends than God's and truth's. 
It drowns individual conscience, and lessens the sanction of 
individual responsibility to God, and introduces compromises, ^ 
the 'bane of truthful investigation. It gives sanction and ^ 
gravity to error by putting it in the sanctimonious habiliments 
of authority that not inaptly or unfrequently causes it to in- 
fest the body of Christ's followers, until the whole system 
becomes impaired in usefulness, and is ready to expire from 
the taint of the parasite putrefaction before it sloughs off, and, 
like the dead bodies of the apocalyptic vision, is not suffered 
quietly to be put into hungry graves. 

We are satisfied we have advocated no doctrine whose con- 
sequences do not appear to be practically beneficial to the 
human family. 

We are satisfied we have advocated no doctrine which 
does not seem to be entirely consistent with the attributes of 
God as a good, wise, and powerful being. 

We are satisfied we have advocated no doctrine which 
does not appear to be sustained by the undistorted language 
of inspiration, and by the principles of fair reasoning. 

We are satisfied we have advocated no doctrines which do 



THE WILL. 



361 



not appear to have those authoritative pillars of support, 
however disagreeable to human ease and comfort. Whether 
the doctrines we have advocated be sustained or not, we leave 
to time ; and to the other question, whether they be true. We 
have assailed venerable opinions ; but that is the head and 
front of our offending. We have assailed human authority, 
but have done nothing more. If human opinions be true 
gold, they should seek the ordeal, and should be able to 
stand the test of the refiner's fire. True to an original law 
of God, they will come the brighter from the conflict. The 
erratic career of Phaeton exalted so much the more the steady 
course of the sun. 

We wish it distinctly borne in mind, that it is no part of 
our desire to diminish the utility or to lessen the importance 
of form and ceremonies, in the affair of the salvation of the 
soul. So long as they are made to sustain their proper re- 
lation to the Gospel they are praiseworthy and commendable, 
however imposing and captivating they may be. We are 
always to remember that their object is to act upon man. 
How ? By drawing him to God, or by drawing God to him ? 
Not at all. But by preparing the creature to exercise that 
faith that is the condition of salvation. It is faith that 
draws God to man, and man to God ; and it is the institu- 
tions of the Gospel that induce men to exercise this faith. 
Hence they act primarily and exclusively upon man. They 
do not act upon God at all. Faith acts upon him, and noth- 
ing else, since that constitutes the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Hence all the institutions of the Gospel are aids to the 
Gospel. They lead men to the Gospel, and the Gospel leads 
men to God. By the Gospel we are to understand salvation 
by faith, and by faith the state of the will, declared in ac- 
tions of a prescribed test. 

Hence it will be observed, that our remarks are not di- 
rected by any supposed repugnance or hostility to forms, im- 



362 



TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



posing and venerable as they may be made, but by the strong 
desire that they may not be substituted in lieu of the Gospel. 
We must never perform them with any other view than that 
of their influence upon ourselves, as preparing us to exercise 
the condition of the Gospel. We must especially avoid 
leasing upon them, or upon their diligent or careful per- 
formance, as in any degree calculated to propitiate the favor 
of God, only so far as they may have induced us to come to 
him by the exclusive pathway of the Gospel. 

.Now, if by making the ceremonial institutions of the Gos- 
pel imposing, you thereby work upon the imagination of the 
creature, and thereby induce the creature to apply to the 
Gospel by faith for salvation, their very gorgeousness is highly 
commendable. But when, upon the contrary, the creature is 
induced by the very imposing and gorgeous ceremonials con- 
nected with the institutions of the Gospel, to expect God's 
favor in their use, they are pernicious in the highest degree. 
They are inconceivably pernicious, since they at once re- 
move the key of knowledge, and shut up the kingdom of 
salvation or grace. The only key to grace is the Gospel of 
faith, and the means of grace are the institutions of the 
Gospel. 

It is in this light that we are to regard baptism, prayer, 
fasting, the supper, and other aids to the Gospel. 

We commit our theory to the consideration of calm men 
and calm times. If we are right, mankind is benefited to 
the extent of it ; if wrong, there is nothing peculiar about 
it, for it will, in that event, go down as the thousand and one 
errors of well-meaning men have gone down, and deserved to 
go down. Time is the heritage of Truth — 

e< The eternal years of God are hers." 

She will arise, amid the errors of men, like her author, in op- 
position to the intents of bad men, with healing in her wings. 



THE WILL. 



363 



The retreat of error is only another form of words to convey 
the impression of human progress ; and as long as human 
progress is possible, it is predicated upon the existence of re- 
treating error. We must pursue truth for its own inherent 
loveliness, with an affection unsoiled by hatred of those who 
stray away from her paths in her pursuit We must espe- 
cially seek the aid of the " God of Zion," who " strengtheneth 
the bars of her gates," and scattereth " the hoar frost" of error 
" like ashes ;" and who has attached advance to pursuit, as 
its recompense. 

There is nothing that characterizes the religion of Christ 
Jesus more than its simplicity. God simplifies. The prime 
object of the Christian scheme is to simplify so as to be ac- 
commodated to all grades of comprehensive power. To obey 
is the simplest word in the vocabulary of human speech to 
be comprehended, and the most difficult of observance, Man 
rebels at authority, and hence invents substitutes. His 
richest field is metaphysical philosophy. 

" A windy sea of land, 
Dark, waste, and wild, under the frown of night, 
Starless exposed." 

The pride of man's heart swells to the love of the involved 
and the ceremonial. If man were called upon to institute a 
religion, true to the instinctive proclivity of his nature, to 
save himself — to trust to his own will — he would institute 
one gorgeous from the splendor of its imposing ceremonials, 
or onerous from the bitter burdens of a self-penance. The 
secret tendency of the heart is towards idolatry in some of 
its protean shapes. Christ Jesus has introduced his, free 
from every vestige of essential form. Christ says, " Give me 
thy heart." Man's heart says, " Observe antique and impos- 
ing ceremonials, reverence forms, practice genuflections, and 
keep sanctified days and a code of asceticism." The cowardice 



364 TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

of the natural heart, away from the grace of God, prone for 
the • near, yearns for forms, yearns for something material, 
something tangible, something impressive and obvious to the 
senses to lean upon, to catch as supports of the faithless soul 
in lieu of the will of God — in lieu of repose wholly upon his 
grace. The natural man thinks he is lost when he surrenders 
his own will. He cannot believe that the will of God is the 
only hope of safety. The germ of this weird desire is the 
native idolatry of the heart. 

"If we too much 
And far have ventured — if the cherub's wing 
Which shades the ark, we have presumed to touch 
With voice profane — if we have dared to sing 
Of themes too high ; and swept the sacred string 
To none but masters of the lyre allowed ; 
Then may this world's neglect or censure fling 
Its shadows o'er the faults it blames, and shroud 
The thinker and the theme in one oblivious cloud." 



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